


nineteen days

by loyaulte_me_lie



Category: Captain America (Movies), Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - World War II, Angst, Bickering, Crossover, French Resistance, Gen, M/M, Magic, Mutual Pining, Pre-Slash, Slow Burn, Special Operations Executive
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-05
Updated: 2020-05-06
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:41:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 29,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23895499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loyaulte_me_lie/pseuds/loyaulte_me_lie
Summary: How to fall in love and dodge Deustchlanders in Occupied France, a travel guide by René Enjolras and Jesús Grantaire with additional material byles shouty boysThe Howling Commandosyou punkWhatever you say, Barnes
Relationships: Enjolras/Grantaire (Les Misérables), Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 19
Kudos: 37
Collections: Les Mis Big Bang: Quarantine Edition





	1. week the first

**Author's Note:**

> Context: this fic was supposed to be around the 3k mark. this fic folded its arms, shook its head, and point-blank refused. it has been an interesting week and i am very sleep-deprived but i enjoyed myself hugely so i guess that's all that matters?
> 
> A million thanks to a number of people without which i would be a puddle on the floor - Andrea, my fabulous partner in Big Bang crime who did the gorgeous art; Matthew (my brother) who helped me solve my worldbuilding and plotting problems and let me lie on the floor of his room and whine about fight scenes; cantando-siempre for looking over early drafts and kicking me into action; Marie for the beta-reads and endless enthusiasm; Clarey for all the encouragement and hand-holding.
> 
> TRIGGER WARNINGS: WWII - anything and everything to do with the Nazi occupation of France (murder, talk about genocide, etc) - and suicidal characters. Please look after yourselves, folks.

“But stories are reckless things, blind to everything but their own shape. When you tell a story, you set out to leave so much behind.” **\- Ayşegül Savas.**

*

René Enjolras, Jesús Grantaire, Éponine Thenardier

 _Art by Andrea_ _(itsallaboutme11)_

*

**March 1944**

**[day one]**

The bells of the nearby village church toll midnight, and Enjolras has had enough.

“He’s late,” Enjolras hisses in Éponine’s direction. “The drop was supposed to happen half an hour ago.”

She crawls closer, the grass sibilant as she moves. “You _know_ these things are never accurate. Don’t get your knickers in a twist.”

“There was a garrison changeover three days ago, Éponine. They’re always more strict on the first week in post, you know that.”

“And the patrol this way isn’t due until dawn. We’re alright.” Then, “I think I hear something.”

They both fall silent and Enjolras rests his chin on his hand, strains his ears. There is a faint buzz somewhere miles above the clouds, but it’s as likely to be a returning Luftwaffe squadron as the British. Three years of resistance work under his belt and still he hates waiting; it only makes it worse that this is for such an utterly stupid risk. He’s still certain he and Combeferre could have helped Monsieur Valjean escape without the SOE insisting on parachuting in another goddamn agent, but in the end he was overruled.

Ten more minutes pass, and then Éponine sucks in a quick breath. “Yeah, that’s him.”

The night is moonless and navy-blue and Enjolras silently pushes himself onto his haunches, using his good arm to find his balance. If he squints he can make out a slightly darker shape against the wisps of clouds, swaying and getting bigger. It’s coming in quickly down the far end of the field where they’ve been freezing their asses off waiting.

“Come on,” Éponine says, scrambling to her feet and offering Enjolras a hand. They make their way as carefully as possible round the edge of the field, sticking low and to the wall and trying not to leave boot-prints where they wouldn’t be expected. The long grass rustles in a faint breath of breeze and Enjolras stows the heavy torch Éponine had been using to signal the planes back in his bag.

The man is already upright and disentangling himself from his parachute as they approach, a medium-sized silhouette against the whisper-thin bare-branched trees. Éponine makes a move to go to him, but Enjolras grabs her shoulder before she can.

“Make sure it’s him,” he snaps.

“It _is_ him. Seriously, I’ve known the bastard for years. I’d recognise that hair anywhere.”

She wriggles out of Enjolras’ grip and goes striding across the field, her satchel bumping against her back. Enjolras follows more warily.

“Éponine,” the man says, louder than Enjolras is comfortable with. “Long time no see, cariña.”

Éponine murmurs something in Spanish, stepping into a brief hug. Enjolras stops just beyond the fall of the parachute and folds his arm across his chest. In the gloom he can just about make out an irregular nose, brown skin, and lots of kinky dark hair falling out of a loose braid.

“This is Enjolras, the leader of the cell. He’s the one you’ll be travelling with,” Éponine says after a moment, leading the man in Enjolras’ direction. The parachute rasps on the ground behind him. “Enjolras, this is my friend and backup Jesús Grantaire. We all call him R.”

The bitter midnight chill has died down somewhat for reasons Enjolras isn’t too sure of. The man flashes him a smile with a sharp edge of mockery, sketches a bow and Enjolras could have sworn that the air is suddenly full of something strange, humming against the exposed skin at the back of his neck and the tips of his ears. He glances to Éponine but she doesn’t seem to have reacted at all.

“Charmed,” Grantaire says. He’s got an accent not dissimilar from Éponine’s, but it’s much more pronounced. Enjolras hopes he’s able dull it down when they actually begin this madness; Éponine is having enough trouble explaining her presence to the Nazis this far from the Spanish border. Enjolras doesn’t like to think about how suspicious they’ll be in Normandy.

“Let’s get a move on,” Enjolras says brusquely, irritated already by the insistent humming and the sense that the man, Grantaire, is laughing at them, “we’ve already been out here too long. Éponine, you’d better get back before your neighbour has her nightmare and wakes up.”

“I know,” Éponine says patiently. “It’ll be fine. She had most of a bottle of wine at dinner, she’ll be out cold. Will I see you before you go?”

“Doubt it.”

“Well,” she smiles, all teeth, “bonne voyage. Try not to get killed.”

“Can’t promise anything,” Enjolras says, pressing his hand to her shoulder for a second. She rolls her eyes and then she’s walking away, climbing the gate into the lane and disappearing from view.

“Right.” He turns back to Grantaire who is standing in a loose approximation of parade rest. His face is in shadow but his eyes glint in the dark and Enjolras tells himself that feeling inadequate is ridiculous. This is his terrain, his war – it doesn’t matter what ridiculous stories Éponine tells about Grantaire and their adventures during the Spanish Civil War. Grantaire’s not been living under this occupation for the last four years; Enjolras has. “Let’s get your parachute packed up and we’ll get out of here too.”

*

It’s a long walk up into the hills, made worse by Enjolras’ utter unwillingness to even enter into vague conversation. Grantaire isn’t bothered by the incline or the burden of most of his parachute but he is by the _silence._ If Enjolras won’t talk, he has nothing to distract himself from the pitch and swell of energy foaming around his shields. The trees feel like they’re trying to pry open his skull with sap-sticky fingers, the roiling of the earth’s core kilometres beneath his feet erupting with every step. There’s a damn reason he’s been living in cities where he can for the last decade – they’re so much quieter to an elemental mage, so much less of a goddamn headache.

He tries to divert his attention by focussing on the steel-straight line of Enjolras’ back as he forges a path through the undergrowth. Even in the dark, Grantaire knows that he’s beautiful – he caught enough of the angles of his face, the broad shoulders, the height to be able to paint a picture. Enjolras is also missing his lower left arm, which Grantaire would have thought to be a problem until he’d seen Enjolras deftly helping him pack up the parachute. It’s evidently an older injury, something Enjolras has learned to work with – vital, in this day and age.

Abruptly, Enjolras stops and turns to face him. The sky is lightening enough with the promise of dawn to show his fair hair, the stern cut of his brow, his face granite like the meanest cliff-face. He doesn’t look like he even knows how to smile. Grantaire’s stomach clenches, a fistful of sudden nerves. What the hell has he let Éponine and Señor Javert guilt him into? _Well_ , his mental Éponine says brusquely, _at least we got you out of bed, imbécil._

“I’m going to need to blindfold you,” Enjolras says. His voice is quiet and very cold, and he pulls a length of dark green cloth out of his trouser pocket.

“Wow,” Grantaire drawls, “you really didn’t strike me as the deviant kind. Guess that teaches me not to judge a book by its cover.”

That gets a hint of a frown around Enjolras’ eyes. Jesus, someone needs to get the stick out of his ass; three weeks travelling with this man is going to be hell. Perhaps he hasn’t got the memo that the only real way to survive a war is to defend your sense of humour to the last man. That, or to acquaint yourself very well with the bottom of a bottle.

“No judgement, though, whatever you’re into,” Grantaire continues, enjoying the way uncomfortable awareness starts to dawn on Enjolras’ face. “Lord knows I’ve spent too much time in underground clubs to cast any kind of aspersions.”

“I am…you are _deliberately_ misconstruing my words.”

“Oh am I? Well, friend, one doesn’t expect to be _blindfolded_ when being taken to a camp one has to work from.”

“We’re only going to be there one night,” Enjolras counters, sharp. “And I’d rather not jeopardise the safety of my comrades for your delicate sensibilities. If we’re captured, it’s best for you to know as little as possible.”

“You’re not blindfolded.”

“I run operations.”

“And what if you get captured?”

“I don’t have _time_ for you to be deliberately difficult! Would you please just shut up and do as you’re told?”

“Since you asked so nicely,” Grantaire says, as mockingly sing-song as he can manage, taking the blindfold from Enjolras and tying it around his own eyes, ignoring the way his stomach is all hollowed out. What a brilliant first impression he’s making.

To Enjolras’ credit he turns out to be a careful and helpful guide, warning Grantaire of every tiny change in terrain. They walk through a small, muddy valley and up a stony scree slope – Grantaire senses the trees thickening and growing closer together, steps closer to Enjolras’ back to avoid getting caught in anything. Even though he’s blocking most of it out, the sense being a mage gives him is enough to compensate for the lack of sight. He’s got a good idea of where everything is from the chatter of the trees overhead, the footsteps of curious hidden animals reverberating through the damp woodland air. Somewhere close by two voles are having a fight, totally unaware of the owl hovering silently above them.

Eventually, they begin to walk alongside a rushing noise Grantaire identifies as a stream from the swishing of water on fish scales and pebbles, the cool rush of potential energy transforming into kinetic. Suddenly Enjolras stops dead. Grantaire nearly stumbles into him, steadies himself on Enjolras’ shoulder. Enjolras tenses under his hand as though Grantaire’s touch burns. It probably does.

“There are stairs here,” Enjolras says. “I’ll take your hand, alright? Be careful, it rained yesterday.”

“Oh how _romantic,_ ” Grantaire coos. There’s the sound of teeth gritting, and Grantaire laughs silently to himself. The world is a complete and utter mess right now and he’s already made a complete tit of himself – he might as well continue teasing an annoyingly attractive man whilst he can. There is no harm in having a bit of fun.

Enjolras takes his hand – his fingers are strong, gun-calloused – and counts him down the steps. There are twenty-seven of them, to be precise, and all are faintly mossy and smelling of stagnant water. A drip hits the top of his head and loose stone crunches; their footsteps echo faintly. Tunnel, Grantaire thinks, remembers the hideout he and Éponine had found for themselves in Catalonia as they travelled north away from prying eyes and agents of both Franco’s regime and El Círculo. That had been full of ancient speleothems with stories galore of the world as it grew. Landforms that develop via the slow seepage of minerals have an entirely different view of matters, one that people might do well to take into account.

The tunnel feels as though it goes on forever, twisting and turning, and then it finally opens out into what Grantaire can tell is a cavernous space from the way the air flows, trickling freezing down the neck of his jacket. The regimented thunder of water drowns out all noise from the outside world.

“You can take off the blindfold,” Enjolras is saying, and Grantaire does, shucking off his pack too. The light is dim but it’s still enough to make him blink as it refracts through a grey wall of water. “This is the entrance hall. Guard post is up there,” he points to a rough-hewn staircase, a hole in the wall, “and where we store big kit like the parachutes, ropes, tins. Everyone will be inside.”

Grantaire doesn’t have much time to answer before Enjolras is leading him across the sandy floor of the cave and through a mossy door hidden in the very back corner. They climb two steps, come through another heavy door – the first thing Grantaire feels is a blast of welcome warmth from the hearth cut into the back wall and he wonders how on _earth_ they’re hiding the smoke.

“So this is him?” a voice booms from across the room, and Grantaire glances up to see a broad-shouldered man with a nose that looks to have been broken as many times as his own rising from a pile of crates. Several others scramble to their feet too.

“Who else would it be?” Enjolras asks, picking his way through the neat piles on the floor towards where a man with dark brown skin and short, curly hair is crouching over a stew pot.

“Well you do have a habit of picking up strays,” another man remarks, his smile brighter than a sodium flare.

“One time, Courfeyrac, that was one time.” Enjolras rolls his eyes, but there’s an infinitesimal softening to his face like this argument is long-worn and fond. “Grantaire, Combeferre saved us dinner.”

“I never let him forget it,” Courfeyrac turns to aim his grin at Grantaire, who finds himself wholly incapable of not smiling back. He wonders if Courfeyrac knows what a deadly weapon a smile can be.

“The mark of true friendship,” Grantaire agrees, accepting a chipped bowl of unidentifiable meat and carrot stew from Combeferre, who upon closer inspection has an enormous scar gouged into the side of his face. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” Combeferre says, begins pouring out tea into seven small tin mugs. Enjolras has settled like a cat right next to the hearth, pulling one knee up to his chest. The broad-shouldered man with the broken nose, who introduces himself as Bahorel-from-Algeria, drags Grantaire down into a sagging and very stained divan, chucks a blanket over his lap.

“Welcome to our humble abode,” he says, gesturing around at the mossy, uneven rock ceiling, the way their breath mists in the air, the half-constructed circuits piled on a table in the corner. “The headquarters of the revolution.”

“Mmhmm,” Grantaire says through a mouthful of stew, enjoying the warmth of it if not the taste. He’d last eaten something this filling hours before the flight to France took off and even then he was too nervous to particularly taste any of it. God he misses proper food, like the kind his abuela used to whip up out of nowhere on Sundays for the hordes of family who would always worm their way out of the woodwork, tempted by the smells of bubbling pozole and champurrado. “Am I allowed to know everyone else’s names?”

Apparently he is, or at the very least their code-names. There are six people currently resident with a deliberately vague number scattered through the various villages surrounding the mountains. All of those who live permanently at the waterfall are those for whom living out would be too dangerous, or those who are presumed dead by their communities. The latter include Enjolras, Combeferre, and a young person of indeterminate gender who goes by the name of Jehan and doesn’t attempt to provide much confirmation either way. They have pale, freckled cheeks and long ginger hair that they keep up in a braid, and they sit cross legged under an enormous pile of different coloured blankets putting tiny braids into Courfeyrac’s hair who is now lounging half in their lap like a sleepy cat.

Jehan keeps pressing little kisses to his forehead too. Grantaire wonders absently if they’re together.

Bossuet is on guard at the moment, but Combeferre says that Grantaire will probably get to meet him when he’s slept, tugs another blanket off Jehan’s shoulders and hands it over.

“You’ve got a long few weeks coming up,” he says. “Get as much rest as you can whilst you’re here.”

It’s sensible, of course it’s sensible and Grantaire wishes he could just take advice like that like a regular person, not find himself reflexively reaching for the bottle that isn’t there. How he’s going to sleep soundly in a new place without alcohol is beyond him, but he knows that Éponine was right in her insistence on him giving it up – despite what his favourite trash novels might have you believe, being an enemy agent sadly does not correlate well with being hammered.

“Nice to meet you all, chaps,” he says, uncurling himself and easing into a standing position. “I’ll leave you to your dastardly planning.”

Enjolras snorts and rolls his eyes, and Grantaire makes sure to send an obvious wink in his direction as he turns to push the sheet aside and go into the dormitory. It turns out that he doesn’t have to worry. Within less than a minute of being in bed, he’s fast asleep.

**[day two]**

He scrabbles awake from the usual nightmares of rubble and dusty, haunted silence to voices behind the sheet. Rubbing his eyes clean of smoke and the echoes of screams, he quietly pulls himself into a sitting position and slips his feet into his boots.

“I just don’t see why we couldn’t do it on our own,” Enjolras is grousing. “Why did the English need to send him?”

“Because you’re the only one of us with the skills to go.” That’s Combeferre, voice calm and even.

“Éponine does.”

“Éponine is our wireless operator. Enjolras, we’ve had this discussion. And anyway, it would have been much harder to get the money and good false papers on such short notice without the SOE.”

“I know, I know.” A sigh. Grantaire tries to drown out the buzz of radioactive decay in the rocks above his head, tries to concentrate on their conversation. “I just…after meeting him, I’m sure he’s perfectly qualified, he hiked up here without any complaints, it’s…”

“He’s flirting with you and you’re uncomfortable,” Courfeyrac butts in.

“No he’s not. Courfeyrac, don’t give me that look.”

“He’s not _bad_ to look at, if you’re into the vaguely dishevelled type -” A yelp, as though someone has just got pinched. “Fine! Spoilsport. Just tell him to cut it out if you don’t like it.”

“I _have._ ”

“In Enjolras-speak or in normal human communication?”

“It’s beside the point,” Enjolras says, after a pause. “I know I’ve got to put up with him, it’s much more important that we see Monsieur Valjean and his daughter to safety, I just…would prefer to have someone I trusted at my back. That’s all.”

“Understandable,” Combeferre hums, and Grantaire twists his fingers together. It is understandable. They _don’t_ know each other and they’re about to embark on a truly ridiculous, death-defying odyssey across an occupied country on a mission he was practically guilted into. “Éponine thinks he’s trustworthy.”

“Éponine also thinks, I quote, that he’s a ‘complete idiot with no brain-to-mouth filter.’ Though they are friends, so what that says about her taste…”

“ _Courfeyrac_.”

“Fine, fine. In all seriousness, Enjolras, we can pull out of this if you want. We’ve got plenty left on our list of targets, and the next bunch of escapees due at the end of the week.”

“No,” Enjolras says, with barely a breath for a pause. “No, we’re not. Everything’s ready. It’s vital the Nazis don’t get their hands on Valjean’s research.”

“If you’re sure.” Combeferre’s voice is very gentle, and there’s a pause. “Right, I’m going to go and re-check your packs. Did you find the hand-gripper in the end?”

“I’ll come with you,” Enjolras says. “Yes. It was under one of the beds.”

“I…do not want to know how it got there.”

“I honestly don’t know why you’re looking at me, Combeferre,” Courfeyrac grumbles. “I will stay right here and guard the porridge pot until Sleeping Beauty awakes.”

“A trying task,” Combeferre says drolly. “Don’t eat it all before he gets up.”

“You _wound_ me.”

There’s a laugh and then crunching footsteps, the muted slam of the outer door. Grantaire decides to give it five minutes to pretend that he wasn’t eavesdropping, but it’s futile because Courfeyrac calls through the curtain: “You can stop pretending to be asleep, Grantaire! I don’t bite unless you want me to!”

“How could you tell?” Grantaire asks, pulling his jumper over his head and shoving through the sheet into the chill of the main room. Courfeyrac is curled up under several blankets on the divan, indicates via foot-thumping that Grantaire should join him.

“I heard you.”

“Damn, I thought I was so quiet. Have I missed the part where you’re a superhuman or something like those bloody Captain America news reels?”

Courfeyrac snorts. “Sadly not. I’ve got seven siblings. You get _very_ good at telling when someone is eavesdropping.”

“As evidenced.” Grantaire spoons porridge into a bowl and sits on the end of the divan. Courfeyrac immediately puts his feet into Grantaire’s lap in an entirely over-familiar fashion that reminds him achingly of Éponine when they’d first met. “So, Apollo is having second thoughts?”

“What did you call him?”

“Apollo.” Grantaire makes a vague gesture in the direction of his hair with his porridge spoon, “he’s got the hair. And the whole I-will-smite-you attitude. I was considering making an angel joke, but that’s probably been way overdone.”

“He is going to hate that name _so much,_ ” Courfeyrac says, gleefully. “This is great. And to answer your question, no, not really. If he were seriously having second thoughts he’d have backed out.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’ve known Enjolras since we were kids. I promise. When he’s made a decision, nothing short of a fucking avalanche will sway him. You’re in safe hands.”

“There is something about you that makes me trust you,” Grantaire says, pointing his spoon at Courfeyrac, who pretends to swoon. “Don’t make me regret it.”

“I won’t.”

“You won’t what?”

The door has cracked open and Enjolras has stuck his head round.

“None of your business, my friend,” Courfeyrac says.

“Fine. Grantaire, we’ve sorted out a pack for you but if you want to add anything now’s the time. We’re leaving at eighteen-hundred.”

“Fifteen minutes,” Courfeyrac supplies helpfully. “Here, I’ll wash your bowl.”

“Thanks,” Grantaire says, unpeeling himself from the divan and stretching until his back cracks. He goes back into their dormitory, makes the bed and then braces himself against the stone wall, takes several deep breaths. His abuela’s crucifix is still around his neck. He touches it with one finger, says a quick prayer to the God he only really believes in for convenience or when there’s no-one else to speak to. He can do this. He can do this last thing, redeem himself, and then go stand before the Circle and let them finally end it all, assuming that he doesn’t die in the process of getting Javert’s old friend and the key that will win the war out of the country. He rolls up his jumper sleeves, and goes out into the main entrance cavern where Enjolras, Combeferre, and Courfeyrac are all waiting. A small pack sits on the floor.

“You shouldn’t draw undue attention to yourselves,” Combeferre says in answer to his look. “And we’ve got enough allies along the planned route that you’ll be able to restock as needed.”

Grantaire nods, slings it onto his back, and takes the blindfold with only a small smirk in Enjolras’ direction. Courfeyrac loops an arm through his.

“I didn’t realise you were gracing us with your presence,” Grantaire says as they begin to walk down the tunnels.

“Only to the pick-up point,” Courfeyrac replies, squeezing his arm companionably. “Then I am afraid we shall have to put the beginning of our beautiful friendship on hiatus until the Nazis have fucked off out of here. Unless you fancy coming back to Vosges afterwards to help us blow shit up.”

“Tempting offer,” Grantaire says. In another world it might be nice – back in a cave fighting the good fight, living off the thrill of adrenaline and fear, spending every waking moment trying to make Enjolras turn that fascinating shade of pink. Unfortunately in reality he’ll be too dead to do anything of the sort unless the world has the last laugh and he ends up as a ghost.

Half an hour out down the other side of the mountain they pause so that Courfeyrac can liberate Grantaire from the constraints of his blindfold. It’s a much more enjoyable hike after that – the early-spring evening is thick with golden light and Enjolras and Combeferre march ahead, heads tucked together and chatting about something intense-sounding. Courfeyrac walks with Grantaire, perfectly happy to blow smoke about movie stars and trash novelists and anything but the war as the dusk inhales incrementally around them.

They reach the right clearing about five minutes after Enjolras and Combeferre to find Jehan hanging upside down out of a tree, their braid swooshing towards the floor and flipping a knife around in their hands. As Courfeyrac and Grantaire draw closer, they let out an astoundingly accurate series of hoots, which are answered by less naturalistic crow noises somewhere to the south west. After a few moments there are footsteps and five people emerge out of the trees: Bahorel, a middle-aged bald man with a beard, a tall old white man with greying hair, a much-younger blonde man, and a girl with cool brown skin and a head full of dark curls. Grantaire immediately clocks the faint vibrations around the older man and the girl – mages, _fuck_ – and piles mental stones higher up against his own magical signature, resists the urge to run. He’s suddenly very aware of every thud of his heart. Señor Javert hadn’t said _anything_ about this the _fucker._ He _knows_ how much danger Grantaire is in!

Grantaire shifts, tries to not act suspicious, tries to calm the sudden spike in his pulse. Señor Javert _knows._ The man is as cold as stone but he’s also the most just person Grantaire has ever met. This is unlikely to be a trap. Señor Javert would never put an agent in any kind of danger that they hadn’t wholly consented to, but still Grantaire finds himself unexpectedly angry. It is going to be a fucking nightmare trying to hide in such close proximity to other mages for three whole weeks.

“Grantaire?” Courfeyrac snaps his fingers in front of Grantaire’s face and he blinks.

“Yeah, hi. Sorry. I’m here.”

Enjolras is frowning at him again, and Grantaire restrains the _very_ mature urge to stick his tongue out.

“As I was saying,” Bahorel rumbles, amused, “these are your guides, Enjolras and Grantaire. You’re about as safe as you can get with them.”

“Good to meet you,” the older man who Grantaire correctly guesses must be Valjean offers a firm handshake to both of them. “This is my daughter, Cosette.”

“Hi,” Cosette says, with an only-slightly-forced smile. “Likewise.”

There’s a terribly English moment of awkward silence before Enjolras takes charge, as evidently no-one knows what else to do. “I’ll let you say your goodbyes,” he says, “and we’ll say ours. We can get going whilst it’s still dark.”

They splinter into rag-tag little groups. Cosette immediately steps into the arms of the young blonde man, and Grantaire finds himself watching them for a minute before turning away to give them their privacy. He also doesn’t want to intrude on the little love huddle Enjolras and his friends have going in the opposite corner of the clearing, so finds himself hovering and considering the way the night dribbles black and inky through the branches when someone clears their throat in the vicinity of Grantaire’s left ear. He turns to see Valjean.

“Hello,” he says, for want of anything better, trying not to let his sudden wave of anxiety wobble into his voice. “I can go break up the gang over there if you want to get a move on.”

Valjean chuckles. “No, it’s fine. Give them their time. I actually wanted to talk to you.”

“Why on earth would you want that?” Grantaire says before his brain catches up with his mouth. That’s the kind of comment that would get a smack on the knuckles from his abuela. Why can he never learn to be more careful?

“Javert told me about your situation.”

This is it; this is it; this is it – he’s so distracted that he doesn’t realise that Valjean is still talking until there’s a touch on his shoulder. He forces himself to refocus.

“It must have been hard throwing yourself back into a war, especially one that’s not your own. Cosette and I are very grateful for your help.”

Thank _god,_ the shields are holding. Valjean doesn’t even look suspicious.

“There’s no need to thank me,” Grantaire says, forcing himself to breathe, to act normal, “I was sent under duress. You really don’t know how effective my friend’s puppy dog eyes are.”

Enjolras finally extricates himself and comes striding over, his boots crunching the grass and sparking off tiny skeins of energy where they bend. The others are beginning to walk off too but the bald man turns at the last second, calls to Enjolras:

“Don’t forget to give Musichetta and Joly kisses from me!”

“I won’t,” Enjolras calls back, and the bald man gives him an irreverent salute, disappearing into the trees. Enjolras turns back to them. “Ready?”

“Sure thing, sugar,” Grantaire snipes before Valjean has the opportunity to be both an adult and polite. “Let’s get this show on the road.”

**[day 3]**

Cosette knew it wasn’t going to be a good few weeks, but now they’ve left the safety of Marius’ forest house she can’t quiet the worry that clatters loud and constant in her head. It’s the second night, they’re twenty miles into the night-time fields, and just the thought of how much further they’ve got to go makes her feel physically ill. Her mind is moving in mechanical circles as she walks, the straps of her pack cutting into her shoulders, the quiet energy of the sleeping countrywide like soft silver waves against her skin. No number of practise hikes she and Marius did in the claustrophobic weeks leading up to their departure could have prepared her for constant ache, the chill of the wind, the way every step becomes another mountain between her and home. Then, like clockwork, the guilt sets in. What right has she got to be upset about the opportunity to escape? She knows full well that it’s only their magecraft and her connection to Marius and his awful grandfather standing in the way of a knock on the door, a train east, lungfuls of choking gas or a bullet to the head.

It’s the fact that everything becoming so much bigger than the small, quiet life she’d always envisioned for herself. It’s the fact that mages are getting involved in human wars for the first time in centuries now that the establishment in Mecca have found a cure for the Blight. It’s the fact that helping Marius smuggle as many of her fellow Jewish people out of the country is no longer enough – that the key Papa was given by a Gentile bishop all those years ago is apparently, according to Monsieur Javert’s last message, vital to the Allied war effort. The letter had been extremely cagey, but Papa had been withdrawn and pale for days after receiving it. It’s obviously important, _far_ more important than all of Cosette’s selfish desire to stay.

The night before they’d met Marius’ Resistance friends he’d found across her sitting on the front porch, staring out through the shield she’d spent years perfecting at the brittle silhouettes of pine trees, the jagged teeth of the mountains against the clear March stars.

“This is like the night we’d met,” he’d said, folding himself down beside her and draping a blanket over her lap. She’d snuggled into his side, rested her head on his shoulder. He’d taken her hand and she’d looked down at the glitter of her engagement ring.

“You mean the night you finally drummed up the courage to talk to me?” she’d smiled, mostly to herself.

“I did take an awfully long time, didn’t I?” Marius’ voice had been warm with amusement. “Should have listened to Courfeyrac from the beginning.”

“Don’t tell him that, he’ll be unbearable.” They’d lapsed into silence, and then she’d said: “I just…I was starting to put down roots. To be in charge of my own life, to make my own choices.”

Marius had sighed, soft. “I know, love. It’s hard. But it’s for the best. I’ll sleep easier at night knowing that you’re safe. And we’ll see each other again.”

“How can you be so sure?” she’d asked. He’d just shrugged.

“Do you mind company?” Papa’s voice pulls her out of her head, and she blinks, back in an empty, starlit field. “Grantaire is finding it very amusing to wind Enjolras up but it’s getting a bit tiring.”

“I can imagine,” Cosette says, taking his offered hand and the interruption from her spiralling thoughts. Enjolras and Grantaire have been nothing but perfectly pleasant to her and Papa so far, but they bicker something rotten. Everything Enjolras does gets snarkily narrated by Grantaire who receives nothing but serrated glares in return. Even after only one day Cosette wonders if they know, despite their surface animosity, how they orbit each other – every time Grantaire shifts, Enjolras does too. The energy exchanges fizzling between them have been a fascinating distraction from her own misery. “How are you doing?”

“I’m fine.” Then, at Cosette’s glance, “well, of course I wish we weren’t forced out of our home. It’s so strange to be on the run again. What about you?”

“It’s just another move,” Cosette shrugs, trying to keep the bitterness out of her voice. “Just another fresh start. Though I imagine it’s odd to have Monsieur Javert actually on your side this time.”

Papa’s mouth curls up in the smile it always does when she mentions Javert. If he were her age Cosette is sure he’d be all bashful blushes, but giddy is something for the young and carefree. God knows he and Javert have been through too much to have any ridiculous romantic illusions about each other.

“I’m grateful for it,” he says.

“I couldn’t believe he started working for British Intelligence. Who would have called it?”

“He’s quite good at being surprising for someone so straightforward.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” Cosette says, swaying into Papa’s side. “How much further are we going tonight?”

“A while yet. Enjolras is hoping to get to a wood before we make camp. Do you need a rest?”

“No, I’ll be fine for a bit,” Cosette says. Then, deciding to address the other thing that’s been nagging her, “Papa, I think Grantaire is a mage. I can’t put my finger on it but his energy doesn’t feel right, like it’s a mask or something. There’s more there.”

Papa’s quiet for a while and then he sighs. “Yes, I see that too. He was jumpy when he first met us.”

“Should we say something?”

“No.”

“Really?” Cosette can’t hide her surprise. Papa’s always been cautious, it’s been getting more evident the older he gets, but she feels like this is only something that will fester.

“If he’s hiding something, Cosette, it’s likely for a good reason. We should just be as friendly and courteous as possible – they’re both risking their lives to help us.”

“I know, I just…” Cosette sighs, adjusts the strap of her pack with her free hand. “Get the sense he’s dangerous, somehow.” At Papa’s look, she clarifies, “in general. Dangerous in general. Not to us.”

“If you’re worried you could increase the shields around us and Enjolras.”

“I might,” Cosette says as they mount the hill, following the two tall, dark figures as they begin to descend on the other side. Far above, she can hear the drone of a returning bombing raid. “It can’t hurt, can it?”

“Of course not,” Papa replies.

**[day 4]**

“You are in a truly disgusting mood today,” Grantaire informs Enjolras cheerfully as they set out on the evening of the fourth night. Every single muscle is intent on paining him, but he refuses to give into either the ache or the temptation to draw energy from swoosh of the wind through the grass to bolster himself. The wind’s got better things to be doing than helping him.

“Well noticed,” Enjolras snaps, smacking at the grass with a stick he’s found. His energetic aura is practically _boiling_ – what on earth has got him in such a strop is anyone’s guess.

“Want to talk about it?”

“No.”

“Okay.” Grantaire lapses into quiet and manages to maintain it for a solid hour through the quiet rolling fields before he can’t stand it anymore. They’ve paused at the top of a hill to let Cosette and Valjean have a break.

“Hey,” he says, shifting closer to Enjolras, “can you hear that?”

Enjolras is instantly on alert. “What?”

“That _kyoot kyoot_ noise? It’s a common scops owl. I didn’t realise they came this far north.”

Enjolras is suddenly looking at him, frowning as though he doesn’t quite know what to say. The sheer intensity of his gaze is enough to set the unsuspecting on fire – God knows it’s having that effect on Grantaire. He’s like a moth drawn to lamplight; he can’t get enough of it, of the shivers it sends down his spine. It’s been too long since he was sober enough to enjoy something like this.

“Or it could be a Jehan,” Grantaire adds when it becomes clear that Enjolras isn’t going to contribute to the conversation. “They do an eerily accurate impression.”

“I wish it was Jehan,” Enjolras mutters under his breath, and then he sighs.

“Jehan taught me and Papa how to do that owl noise,” Cosette says from where she’s sitting cross-legged on the ground. Grantaire finds a smile for her which she hesitantly returns. Valjean is some way off along the ridge of the hill, regarding the glimmering stars with his hands loosely clasped behind his back. Way off in the gloopy night there’s the sound of an engine, headlights cutting a path down some miles-distant road. “I hope they’re all alright back there.”

“They were supposed to hit somewhere tonight.” Enjolras’ voice is very quiet. “I just hope everything went according to plan.”

Grantaire finds himself exchanging another look with Cosette. It certainly explains a lot.

“Will you be able to find out?” Cosette hazards in an astonishing display of appropriate sensitivity to emotional turmoil. Grantaire gives her a little mental round of applause.

“No,” Enjolras says. “Even if I had access to a radio it would be too dangerous. I won’t know until I get back.”

Cosette’s mouth twists. “I’m sorry.”

“Nothing to be sorry for,” Enjolras says, “just the way of wars. Every day is a precipice.”

“Especially if you choose to keep fucking standing on it,” Grantaire murmurs under his breath and Enjolras shoots him a glare.

“Is there really a choice?” Enjolras asks, and then walks away before either Cosette or Grantaire can answer.

**[day 5]**

By mid-afternoon, they’ve hit the range of rolling, dark-forested hills to the south-east of Verdun. Enjolras finds some of the weight easing off his shoulders as they leave the flat open wetlands they’d been crossing before. It doesn’t matter that there are no settlements for miles – he hates being out in the open like that, hates that there is nowhere to hide should they be happened upon by a patrol, or worse, the Luftwaffe.

In the woods it’s steep, rocky going but there are the beginnings of flowers tentatively uncurling at the base of the trees and the branches are greening. He wonders whether his forest is starting to look like this too. He’d never admit it out loud but he loves the coming of spring in the Vosges, the tumble of meltwater, the sudden signs of life emerging from their winter sleeps, slowly, slowly, then all at once. Of course, once he starts thinking about the Vosges, he starts thinking about his friends getting ready to aid a British paratroop raid on a Luftwaffe radar installation. If he closes his eyes he could be there – the thrill of the wait; the signal; the snap of parachute canvas and the taste of adrenaline bitter in his mouth; Combeferre’s eyes glinting in the dark; Courfeyrac’s hand on his shoulder; Jehan’s bird noises signalling them closer; the sudden gunfire a sparking live wire against the eerie silhouettes of a requisitioned farm.

He doesn’t realise he’s being actually addressed until Grantaire’s poking him hard in the shoulder. Grantaire has been talking endlessly today in several different languages – Enjolras had picked out English and Spanish alongside another he doesn’t know – which had been irritating, to begin with, before unexpectedly becoming a comforting background hum. At the very least it had been a distraction from the general buzzing sensation Grantaire drags around with him like a cloud of small insects.

“What’s the matter?” Enjolras asks, snapping back into the present.

“Good place to camp?” Grantaire repeats himself, gesturing around. “Thoughts, oh leader supreme?”

Enjolras sighs. It is, as a matter of fact, a very good place to camp. They’re in a valley between two hills, in a small clearing in the thick forest. They might even be able to light a fire.

“Isn’t it a bit early?”

“We haven’t had a good break for the last forty-eight hours,” Grantaire points out. “Just because you’re made of marble doesn’t mean that everyone else is.”

“Fine,” Enjolras says, turns to Valjean and Cosette who are talking quietly in German. “Are you two alright to break here?”

“Of course,” Valjean says, looking up. “I was going to ask if we could at any rate. It’s Shabbat tonight.”

“So it is,” Enjolras hums, sliding off his pack and stretching his arms. He catches Grantaire’s frown out of the corner of his eye. “Meat is traditional, right?”

“Yes,” Valjean says. “But it’s alright if you want to save the dried meat for necessity. We can’t be fully observant whilst travelling anyway.”

“I was thinking I could hunt something, actually,” Enjolras shrugs. “There are plenty of animals around in mid-March and we can easily hide any smoke.”

“Oh.” Valjean smiles then, with more than just his habitual politeness. “Well, that’s very kind. We wouldn’t say no.”

Enjolras gives him a nod, crouches to retrieve the silencer for his revolver and carefully screws it into place. There should be rabbits around at this time of day, or perhaps the geese will be returning from the south. “I’ll be back soon,” he says. “Get a fire going and camp set up.”

“Can I come with you?” Cosette asks as he straightens, tucking the gun back into the holster. He gives her a quick, searching look. Her arms are wrapped around herself and her face is set. “I’m not ready to sit down and get cold yet.”

“If you want,” he shrugs.

“I’ll be back before sundown,” she says to Valjean.

Cosette is a good hunting partner – light-footed and quiet as a mouse as she follows him back into the forest and up the hill. They walk for about a kilometre before Enjolras signals to her to come closer, quietly draws his gun. He can hear something rustling in the undergrowth up ahead of them.

“Do you want to have a go?” he asks, offering her the gun. She looks between it and him for a moment and then takes it carefully, as though she’s not used to the weight. “Never used one before?”

“What salon hostess and society lady needs to learn how to shoot things?” she counters.

He raises an eyebrow at her. “One who wants to be able to defend herself? There’s no reason for you to rely on a man to protect you, you know.”

Cosette lifts her chin at that, gives him a very level look. She’s been quiet, keeping herself to herself for most of the journey – it’s very different from what Marius appears to see. Perhaps, Enjolras thinks, she just needs a little encouragement.

“Fine,” she says. “Show me.”

He does. She’s got good posture and a fine grip, but a tendency to recoil as it fires even with the silencer muffling most of the noise. After about half an hour shooting at trees she hands the gun back to him with a smile that he meets.

“I don’t think I’m up to shooting something living yet,” she says, slightly breathless. Her cheeks are flushed. “But I reckon I could fake it pretty well if I needed to.”

“Indeed,” he says, finding his smile broadening. “You did well for a beginner.”

“Why thank you,” she says with a mock curtsey. “You’re a good teacher.”

It takes them another hour to successful track and shoot a couple of rabbits, and Enjolras takes it as an opportunity to teach Cosette several tricks for evading capture. By the time they make it back to the clearing, Valjean and Grantaire have managed to get a fire crackling and popping, to draw logs up around it in a semblance of chairs.

“Going to help me gut these, Cosette?” Enjolras asks, dangling the rabbits by their ears in her direction, his smile threatening to turn into a grin at the look on her face. Grantaire is watching him from the other side of the fire, an indecipherable expression on his face. Enjolras refuses to let the itch of it ruin his good humour; he hasn’t felt this light in _days_.

“Ha ha no,” she says. “Anyway, you made me late for Shabbat. I don’t have to do _anything_ until tomorrow morning.”

“Next time,” Enjolras tells her, settling down cross-legged by the fire and getting out his knife. “It’s an important skill.”

“Yes,” she replies, droll, “Absolutely. Cosette Pontmercy’s cultural salon, specialising in wilderness survival and dissecting small mammals. Take off those lace gloves before you ruin them!”

Enjolras finds himself laughing, shaking his head at her. “You’ll thank me one day.”

“I’m sure I will.”

She and Valjean go to pray after that, leaving Enjolras and Grantaire to prepare the meal.

“You genuinely look like a vampire,” Grantaire says as soon as they’re out of earshot. He’s grinning again, mocking, in a way that makes Enjolras’ stomach twist. “Is there even any blood _left_ in that poor animal?”

Enjolras scowls. “Do you think it’s easy cleaning game with one hand?”

“No. It was quite fascinating to watch.” Grantaire leans back insouciantly, and Enjolras resists the irrational urge to kick him off his log.

Grantaire is absolutely no help for the rest of the dinner preparations, but by the time Cosette and Valjean come back over the rabbit is roasting over the coals and Enjolras has managed to put some of their hard-won wheat-flour into a kind of traveller’s bread. He sits back onto his log. Grantaire is leaning forward, looking at the flames, and Enjolras has a sudden flash of fear that Grantaire will make a sarcastic comment or some such nonsense about how God obviously doesn’t exist, will make an ass of himself and offend their companions. Enjolras wishes he’d said something about how important the keeping of Shabbat is, especially with the Nazis attempting to wipe the Jewish people from the earth. He digs his nails into his palm and hopes that Grantaire will behave.

“Shabbat shalom,” Cosette says, settling herself on her log and pulling a fine lace scarf over her hair.

Grantaire opens his mouth and Enjolras braces himself for whatever might come out of it but all he says is, “what does that mean?”

Cosette’s smile is misty in the dancing firelit shadows. “Have a peaceful Sabbath. I always took it rather for granted before the war.”

Grantaire’s face is softer than Enjolras has ever seen it before. He reaches out to take Cosette’s hand, smiles at her across the fire. “Well. Shabbat shalom, Cosette.”

“Shabbat shalom,” he and Valjean both echo quietly. Something Enjolras can’t name begins to bloom between his ribs, like the flowers at the beginning of spring.

**[day 6]**

“Right,” Enjolras whispers, peering around the side of a tree and down the ploughed hill to the road. Several bored-looking soldiers are manning the checkpoint. He takes careful note of their machine guns and the artillery emplacement lodged in the hill behind them. Beyond that he can just about make out the terracotta rooves of Verdun nestled down in the shallow valley, swallows down a strange feeling of nostalgia. He’d passed close by here after the invasion but not close enough to see the town, the trenches, the ghosts.

“I don’t see why we have to go through it,” Grantaire hisses back. “We could have crossed the road a mile back that way, be well in the hills by now.”

“I told you, we’re meeting old friends for a resupply. Joly can take a look at Cosette’s ankle too.”

“She says she’s fine.”

“That was a nasty tumble she took this morning and she’s limping. If we can give her a break we should.”

Enjolras turns as quietly as he can and heads back into the small copse they’ve taken shelter in. A bird trills high above his head, and the bluebells shiver in a purple mist over the floor. Valjean and Cosette have finished packing up the camp and are sitting on a fallen log by the time they get back – Cosette’s ankle really does look swollen despite her insistences to the contrary.

“Only one squad as far as I can tell,” Enjolras says. “I propose we start using the papers. I don’t know the town well enough to get in by any other means and I’m nervous about all the footprints we’ve seen.”

Grantaire makes a derisive snort in the back of his throat and Enjolras finds himself whipping round, the vexation a sudden explosion. “Unless you’ve suddenly discovered how to turn everyone invisible or some such nonsense, perhaps you’ll start taking the situation seriously?”

Grantaire grins, quick and keen, as though he’s in on a joke that Enjolras isn’t. It’s unfair how good he looks in the morning sunshine, unfair that he’s so bloody irritating and hasn’t shut up in _days,_ unfair how kind and respectful he was throughout the entire Shabbat service last night.

“I’m always serious, Apollo,” he says, bending to rummage in his bag and pull out the file of papers he’d brought specially forged from England. “How are we splitting?”

“Well,” Cosette says, “what have you got?”

“Two married couples, a brother and sister, several singles, and a father and son,” Grantaire says, deftly rifling through them.

“Well, perhaps you and I should go together R, since we’re roughly the same skin colour,” Cosette suggests. “Could we pass as siblings?”

“You’ve got very different faces,” Valjean points out.

“Well marriage it is,” Grantaire fishes in his pocket and comes out with a goddamn wedding ring of all things, kneels with a flourish. “Cosette Fauchelevent – or should I say Irène Gagneux – I know you’re happily engaged to another man, but will you marry me? You’ll break my heart if you say no.”

Cosette claps a hand to her mouth to keep from laughing too loudly, Valjean’s eyes have crinkled up at the corners, and even Enjolras has to fight the unwanted smile intent on taking over his face at Grantaire’s theatrics. Enjolras has to admit that Grantaire is annoyingly well-prepared for this; he finds himself wondering what Grantaire did before Éponine ran into him in Spain, where his years have led him.

“Why I would be honoured, Monsieur…”

“Sébastien. I’m an affluent artisan from Nancy and we’re going to stay with your ailing mother in Reims. I’m _also_ a dirty collabo, so I got a friend to get me travel documents.” Grantaire produces the papers for Cosette’s inspection. Enjolras had checked them over the night before they’d left. Whatever he wants to say about the English, they certainly know their stuff when it comes to fakes. “Then Enjolras is coming with us too since he’s the one with the contact. Who do you think he should be?”

“And I’ll make my way around Verdun and meet you on the road to Clermont-en-Argonne.” Valjean nods.

“Are you comfortable with that?” Enjolras asks. “You’ll have to carry most of the stuff.”

“Of course.” Valjean says, mildly. “We should likely get on, though. You’ll have to double back on yourselves and come up the road. You’ll need to be in the town before nightfall.”

It’s quickly decided that Enjolras will transform into Jérôme Lamar, an older businessman, and they all turn to give Cosette some privacy to change into a pretty floral skirt and blouse, pin up her hair under a hat, and put on some dusky-pink lipstick. Valjean unearthes a small tub of white greasepaint from his bag and helps Enjolras apply it to his temples and parting to grey his hair, and they sort the things out so Valjean takes anything that suggests they might not be the innocent travellers they are impersonating.

Cosette gives Valjean a hug and then they start to make their way back through the copse as it descends the spine of the hill. There is some rustling behind them and Enjolras pauses to look, but can’t see anything. It’s likely just a rabbit but even so he resolves to be extra vigilant, to make sure they have an escape route if they need one.

“All clear,” Enjolras says, offering a hand to Cosette to help her across the ditch and onto the road. Grantaire elects to jump in a showy fashion, sliding to a halt and offering Cosette his arm with a bow, which she takes. Her smile is taut, and even Enjolras can see her hands shaking.

“Are you alright?” he asks.

“Just nervous,” she admits. Grantaire tugs her a little closer.

“There’s always a bit of a risk,” Enjolras says, picking up his leather satchel. “But if it makes you feel better, I’ve crossed hundreds of checkpoints and it’s rare for something to happen. We’re not near the demarcation zone or the coast.”

“In other words,” Grantaire interjects, “let Enjolras do the talking and if anything goes wrong it’s all his fault.”

“Very reassuring,” Enjolras grumbles, rolling his eyes. “Let’s get this over with.”

They are the only ones on the road as they approach the checkpoint, and Enjolras feels his heart speed up the way it usually does when he’s about to come into contact with the occupiers. He schools his face into an expression of tired politeness, pulls his hands out of his pockets and forces a genial-ish smile as the soldiers come out of their checkpoint. They’re barely old enough to shave he notes as he hands over the papers – it either means they’ll be bored or overly zealous, both of which can be dangerous, or sloppy and inexperienced. He sends a quick prayer up for the latter.

There are five of them on the road, three more lounging behind their makeshift barricade smoking. They pass the papers amongst themselves for a while; their sergeant studies them for a long time and then looks up. “Where are you travelling to?”

“Reims,” Grantaire answers before Enjolras can, in a direct contradiction to his previous promise. There’s just the right amount of sincerity in his voice, his shoulders are completely relaxed, and his smile is bordering on friendly – Enjolras can’t deny that he’s impressed . “My wife’s mother is very sick, so we’ve been granted permission to go and stay with her until she recovers.”

“And you?” the sergeant says, turning to Enjolras.

“I’m a family friend, travelling to Reims on business,” Enjolras says. “We thought it would be safer to travel together.”

“You never know what trouble you might run into on the road,” the sergeant agrees. There’s another ominous rustle, and Enjolras catches a glint of something out of the corner of his eye, forces himself not to turn and look. That is _far_ too deliberate to be the wind. His palms start to sweat.

“Is it particularly dangerous around here?” Cosette asks, her eyes wide. She huddles closer to Grantaire’s side.

“Not particularly,” one of the other soldiers joins in, “just a few Resistance types, but they haven’t been so active lately.”

The sergeant shoots him a look of consternation and snaps a reprimand in German. Cosette crosses herself.

“Well thank god for that,” Grantaire joins in, and Enjolras makes himself nod. “I hope the rest of our journey is just as quiet.”

“Yes,” the sergeant nods, looks down at the papers. “Where have you come from?”

With the creeping certainty that something bad is about to happen, Enjolras hazards a glance over his shoulder. A pair of blackout-painted eyes stare back, unmistakeably blue against the budding green of the tree branches. There’s another glint of the end of a gun and then they’re gone. They’ve got to get out of here as soon as possible. Grantaire is still joking with the sergeant, now _laughing_ about something and looking like they’re settling in for a chat. Around their home territory it can be a good tactic for winkling out troop movements and lifesaving morsels of information, but for Christ’s sake they’re only passing through! They don’t _need_ to know anything and it looks like they’re about to be caught up in the middle of an ambush and…

“Why the sour face, old man?” one of the other soldiers says suddenly, appearing in front of Enjolras. Enjolras blinks.

“Don’t mind him, he had too many prunes at dinner last night,” Grantaire says quickly when Enjolras flounders for a response. “Hopefully our friends won’t mind too much if he greets the bathroom before he says hello.”

Enjolras flushes but the soldier is laughing, clapping him on the shoulder. He tries not to tense.

“We’ll let you be on your way, then,” the sergeant says. “Safe travels.”

“To you as well,” Grantaire says gaily, and Enjolras forces himself to bid them a polite goodbye, to walk past as normally as possible.

They’re just around the bend in the road when the gunfire starts.

*

“Well,” Grantaire says flippantly as they cross the river that weaves like a glittering, sunlit snake through the centre of town. “That could have gone better.”

“Keep your voice _down,_ ” Enjolras snaps. He’s walking as quickly as he can without forcing Grantaire and Cosette to run to keep up with him, takes a sharp left turn as they come off the bridge and tries to remember Bossuet’s directions. They’ve got to get under cover, he does not have _time_ for Grantaire’s joking right now…

He jerks to a stop outside a green-painted door in a high wall with no windows, looks both ways and then knocks twice. They wait for several heartbeats, and then the door cracks open on a safety chain.

“Who’s there?” a very familiar voice says, and Enjolras can’t hide the exhale of relief.

“Musichetta. It’s me. René.”

The door cracks open a tiny bit more. “What colour dress was I wearing when you first met me?”

“Blue,” Enjolras says without hesitation. “Blue with yellow and orange flowers. You had short hair. I asked you if I was dead.”

The door is quickly pulled open, and he steps into their small garden under the shade of the tangled, knobbly trees, gesturing for Grantaire and Cosette to follow. Musichetta shuts the door and bolts it, and then turns and opens her arms.

“I didn’t think you’d make such good time,” she says and he accepts the hug, trying not to react to how thin and bird-frail she’s become. “It’s so good to see you.”

“You too. Where’s Joly?”

“At the clinic. He’ll be back for dinner.” She turns to smile at Cosette and Grantaire. “I’m Musichetta.”

“You can call me Irène,” Cosette says after a moment’s uncertainty. “This is my husband, Sébastien.”

Musichetta smiles. “Sensible. It’s nice to meet you, Irène. I can’t offer much in the way of refreshment but we do have some real coffee a patient of Joly’s brought him.”

“Coffee,” Grantaire says in a voice that could kindly be termed _indecent._ “You are a goddess.”

“And you are too charming for your own good.” Musichetta’s smile widens. “Come on. Let’s get inside. I’m sure you’ve travelled a long way.”

*

“They’re nice,” Grantaire says, pitching his voice low. He’s up to his elbows in a mountain range of soap-suds. “How did you happen across them?”

It’s been an interesting evening. Joly – a small, smooth-faced Indochinese man, apparently the local doctor – had arrived home soon after them with the news that the German platoon stationed here was locking down the town. Enjolras had told him about the Resistance raid; Joly and Musichetta had exchanged a long look.

“They’re getting sloppy,” is all Musichetta had said, her mouth grim line. Now she, Joly and Cosette have bundled into the small sitting room, laughing over something whilst Joly wraps Cosette’s ankle. Enjolras, a dishtowel wrapped over his stump and drying the dishes carefully, raises his eyebrows.

“I’m interested,” Grantaire insists.

“I fainted on their doorstep. It was just after the battle of Ardennes.” There’s a wry twist to Enjolras’ mouth, and Grantaire is not finding it intensely interesting to look at out of the corner of his eye, he is _not._ He submerges the heavy iron stewpot into the washing water, swishes it around, turning this new knowledge about Enjolras over in his head. He’s sure he knew that Enjolras had seen action but hearing it said out loud drives it home with an ache he wasn’t expecting.

“Dramatic entrance, much?” he quips. Enjolras rolls his eyes.

“Musichetta says the same thing,” he says, and his voice is quietly fond. “They were living in Herbeumont at the time, just married. Apparently I gave her the fright of her life.”

“You came straight from the battle?” Grantaire can hardly believe that Enjolras is opening up like this, tells himself firmly not to muck this up. Last night – Enjolras’ laughter, the easy way he’d teased Cosette – had been utterly fascinating and he’d found himself wanting to know more and more and more.

“I’d been left for dead.” Enjolras heaves the stew pot out of the sink, begins to dry it. His voice is very matter-of-fact. “It’s probably lucky that I was. Courfeyrac tells me that prisoner of war camps are quite grim.”

“I doubt you’d have survived a prisoner of war camp in your condition,” Joly’s voice interrupts them and Grantaire turns to see him leaning in the doorway, the top buttons of his shirt undone. There are what appear to be bandages poking out of the top of it. “He stayed with us for a month or so, getting well. Nearly got caught in searches a few times.”

“It was pretty hairy,” Enjolras agrees. “Never thought I’d get to know the false back of a wardrobe so well.”

“I’m just glad it had enough space for you,” Joly says, “I thought we wouldn’t be able to cram your legs into it that first time.”

“How did you manage?” Grantaire asks before he can think better of it.

“Old coats,” Enjolras says. “Fortunately he didn’t follow through on his threat to cut my legs off too.”

“Aren’t you lucky?” Joly grins. “Anyway. Musichetta sent me to ask you about sleeping arrangements. We’ve got a small bedroom upstairs if you and your wife want to share, Sébastien, but it’s unlikely you’ll get two people into that bed unless you’re really determined.”

Enjolras is very intently studying the floor, and Grantaire is trying to decide whether he should feel uncomfortable when he catches the teasing glint in Joly’s eye. “I think Irène should take the spare room. Enjolras and I can bunk down in your sitting room.”

“We’ll get that all set up now, then,” Joly says, “all lights need to be out by nightfall. They’re quite strict about it.”

That’s how Grantaire finds himself curled into an armchair under a knitted blanket in the pitch dark after performatively saying goodnight to Cosette and handing her up the creaking wooden stairs to her room. Enjolras is a shadow on the divan next to him, bundled in a blanket of his own. After a moment, he flicks a torch on – it casts eerie, wavy shadows on the striped wallpaper.

“Ooh,” Grantaire whispers when it becomes clear that Enjolras is focussed on whatever he’s fidgeting with in his hand, isn’t actually going to say anything. “Slumber party time. Who wants to start?”

“Start what?”

“Ghost stories. That’s what you do at slumber parties according to Éponine. We didn’t do this kind of thing back home, not the way she did.”

“Where is home for you?” Enjolras asks after a moment.

“Define home,” Grantaire says, the usual aching absence making itself known in his chest. Then, “About an hour’s walk from Tampico. That’s in Mexico if you were wondering.”

“Oh. I thought you were Spanish.”

“So bloody European,” Grantaire tries to make his tone light, then wonders why. He’d normally rip anyone who assumed he was from this hellhole of a continent into pieces. He shouldn’t give Enjolras a break just because he’s pretty. “Though I did spend some time in Spain.”

“That’s where you met Éponine?”

“She told you?”

“She likes to tell stories about the things the two of you got up to.” Enjolras pauses. “I apologise. I didn’t mean to assume.”

“I suppose I have to forgive you,” Grantaire sighs, and imagines that Enjolras is smiling.

“We should talk about tomorrow.”

“Ghost stories first. Don’t rob me of my fun, Apollo.”

A pause, probably an eye-roll. “If you insist. Do you know any good ones?”

“Abuela used to like to scare us as kids with the story of when she met La Llorana.”

“Who’s La Llorana?”

“A pretty typical ghost story. She’s a woman who drowned her children as revenge for finding her husband in bed with another woman, and then drowned herself but was refused entry to heaven until she found the souls of her sons. Abuela says she takes children and drowns them – apparently it nearly happened to her, but she dived into the water and swam to safety.”

He pauses, wonders if Enjolras is going to go all rational and ghosts-don’t-exist on him. It would be upsetting if he did. Grantaire refuses to allow himself to be attracted to someone who doesn’t believe in ghosts.

“That sounds terrifying,” Enjolras says after a moment. The cushions rustle. His voice is very serious. “I’m glad she got away.”

“Abuela was a complete badass,” Grantaire says, and then before Enjolras can ask any kind of probing question about his past, says, “your turn.”

Enjolras sighs. “I can’t remember any actual stories, I’m afraid. But Verdun is quite a ghostly place. Ils ne passeront pas and all.”

“They shall not pass?”

“Verdun was the site of one of the bloodiest battles of the Great War. My father and two of my uncles died here.”

“ _Fuck,_ ” Grantaire inhales sharply, “I’m so sorry. I didn’t think…”

“It’s fine,” Enjolras says, and suddenly there are warm, callused fingers on his wrist. Grantaire reminds himself to breathe. “I wasn’t even born at the time. It’s not as if I knew them.”

“It’s still a _thing._ ” Grantaire puts his own hand over Enjolras’. His stomach swoops. There’s a kind of magic about darkness that invites intimacy, the sharing of confidences. He wonders whether people have always been scared of the dark not for what it hides but for what it makes them reveal about themselves, whether they’re scared of how it makes them feel safe. “I never knew my parents either. It’s an absence, an endless question.”

“Whether they would have been proud of you,” Enjolras murmurs.

“Whether they would have loved you.”

“Indeed.”

They lapse into silence. Grantaire closes his eyes, commits the weight of Enjolras’ touch to memory before telling himself that he should move his hand, that attraction on his part is one thing but that to let it be reciprocated is entirely unfair.

“Tomorrow,” Enjolras says eventually.

“What about it?”

“If they’re locking us down then we won’t be able to leave.”

Grantaire grimaces to himself. “Shit, yeah. Is there any way out that doesn’t involve the main roads?”

“Joly and Musichetta will know if there is.”

“Or we could just stay put and keep our covers intact until we know what’s going on.”

“That might end up being the most sensible option.” Enjolras sighs. “We’ll talk to Cosette in the morning. That raid is not going to do any good. I don’t know what the _hell_ they were thinking.”

“You wouldn’t have done something like that?”

“No _way._ ” Enjolras’ fingers tighten on Grantaire’s wrist like he’s forgotten they’re even still there. “Not near such a big civilian population that the occupiers can take out their anger on. And there’s nothing strategic about attacking what, in all honesty, is a small checkpoint on a minor road. If I could get my hand on their leader…”

“I don’t think their ears would survive the encounter intact,” Grantaire says dryly.

“They wouldn’t deserve to.”

“If you say so, Apollo.”

Another sigh. “That nickname is horrendous, Grantaire. You can just use my name.”

“And where would be the fun in that?”

“You’re ridiculous.”

“You love it.”

A pause, and Grantaire squeezes his eyes shut, knows he’s overstepped and wonders when he started fucking caring.

“Yeah,” Enjolras says, his voice suddenly a little rough. Grantaire feels his heart accelerate beyond the speed of sound, finds himself thinking for the first time what it might be like to lean over and kiss Enjolras, whether anything of the kind would be greeted with anything other than outright rejection. No, he tells himself sternly after a moment, forcing him to extricate his hand and tuck it back into his blankets. He is not allowed to start down this path. In two weeks they’ll be at the coast, in two weeks he’ll be heading back across the sea to England, in two weeks he’s turning himself in.

“We should probably sleep,” Enjolras finally says. “Whatever happens, it’s best if we’re rested.”

“True,” Grantaire says. “Buenas noches.”

“Buenas noches,” Enjolras echoes in a thick French accent, completely muddling the pronunciation. Grantaire fights back the smile, pulls his knees up to his chest.

Sleep doesn’t come for a while.

**[day 7]**

The sky above the town square is glowering with cloud and a chill wind whisks through the gathered crowd. Enjolras shifts his weight from one foot to another. It’s been an hour already and no-one has said anything about what is going on; the soldiers had come hammering on everyone’s doors this morning, ordering them to drop what they were doing and present themselves here.

“It’s nothing good,” Musichetta had said unnecessarily, pinning her braid up under her hat and shoving her arms into her coat. “Nothing good at all.”

The wind picks up, whipping Enjolras’ hair off his neck. He hopes they don’t get stuck here, hopes that Valjean has enough sense to carry on without them if they don’t make the rendezvous on time. Cosette’s hand slides around his upper arm and he looks down at her. Her eyes are very wide and she looks like she’s about to be sick.

“Can you see anything?” she whispers.

He’s about to answer when a voice comes crackling through a megaphone, heavy with static. There’s a German officer standing on steps of the town hall flanked by two men in smart black uniforms, a red insignia on their shoulders and caps. Lined up down the side is a group of eight soldiers in grey with their guns in their hands. He glances over at Grantaire who mouths, “firing squad?”

Sweat trickles icily down the indent of his spine. To his left, Joly has his arm around Musichetta’s shoulders.

“As you are all aware,” the officer begins in heavily accented French, “there was an unprovoked attack on the east road checkpoint yesterday. An entire squad was murdered by the foul actions of your countrymen.”

His eyes scrape across the crowd. It’s mostly women, children, old men – Enjolras is excruciatingly aware of how much he and Grantaire stick out. “Your countrymen chose to put you in this situation. You all know the law.”

“Cosette,” Grantaire whispers suddenly.

“Yes, I know,” Cosette hisses back. Her hand is a vice on Enjolras’ arm– she’s pulled Grantaire closer too as though she can make them invisible, keep them safe. The wind snaps harder, and Enjolras swears he feels the ground start to shake beneath his feet. It feels as though something warm and wet is sloshing down over his face but when he puts up his hand to wipe it away he finds nothing.

There are boots in the crowd, and then a pair of soldiers are forcing their way through. They pause right in front of Enjolras and he can’t explain it but it’s like their eyes just skid off him, like they don’t even notice he’s there. They move on after a moment, and then close in on a teenage boy, pull him away from his family. The woman with him screams, but they smack her back with the butts of their guns. Enjolras makes an involuntary motion as though he could step in, get them back.

“No,” Grantaire says, and Musichetta’s hand is reaching out to grab his free one. “Don’t you _fucking dare._ ”

The ground starts to shake even more. People around them are noticing too, are distracted, muttering.

“Silence!” the officer on the steps of the town hall screams into his megaphone. His soldiers are returning, push the boy to the side of the building with a gaggle of other, terrified looking civilians.

The firing squad takes up its position. Enjolras forces himself to stand still. There is nothing he can do, nothing to do that wouldn’t just get more people killed.

The gunshots are impossibly loud, reverberating off the walls of the square.

“We won’t be so lenient next time!” the officer says to the stunned, silent crowd. “Go back to your homes. We will let you get back to your business at twelve-hundred, but travel is forbidden until tomorrow morning.”

With that, an anthem starts to play and he disappears back inside the town hall. There are tears running down Cosette’s face and after a moment Grantaire pulls her into a hug, presses her close. Enjolras just stands and stares at the blood-spatters, the bodies being unceremoniously carted away.


	2. week the second

**[day 8]**

They make it two miles from the checkpoint at the western end of Verdun when Cosette abruptly says, “Papa’s waiting for us in the barn on the top of the hill.”

Grantaire is faintly aware of Valjean’s magical signature too – cinnamon-warm, laughter around a merrily spitting hearth, practised strength under careful control – but blocks it out before he can start to feel the rest of the energy: the wind singing, the clouds a poem of promised rain. His slip in Verdun was inexcusable. He knows he shouldn’t let his emotions get the better of him, _knows_ that’s the easy way to a massacre, _god_ how he knows. Bile rises like poison to the back of his mouth.

“How do you know?” Enjolras asks, and then before Cosette can answer, he shields his eyes with his hand, peers towards the top of the hill. There’s a faint owl’s call drifting on the wind

“Because she’s _magic,_ ” Grantaire says sourly before he can stop himself. Enjolras frowns a reprimand at him.

“Come on,” Cosette says, springing ahead. They wriggle through a gap in the hedge and then she’s gone, striding up the hillside with Grantaire’s jacket flapping as she goes. Grantaire feels the flex in energy, is entirely sure she’s shielding them all from curious eyes. He wonders how long she’s been keeping that up, how he didn’t notice.

“Go on,” Enjolras says, stiffly and Grantaire ignores the lurch in his stomach, follows Cosette up the hill.

*

Enjolras has been trying to make sense of it ever since it happened. They’d got back to Musichetta and Joly’s place and all sat in shellshocked quiet until Joly had used up the last of that week’s sugar on a pot of tea, insisted on playing cards with Cosette and Musichetta.

“Life has to go on,” he’d said, dragging the card table closer. Enjolras knows him well enough that he was able to see the rage smouldering below Joly’s relentless good humour, to know that this is just Joly’s way of coping.

Grantaire had looked at them for five minutes in incredulous disbelief and disappeared into the garden. He had been utterly silent for the rest of the day, his face a withdrawn mask, but since he woke up this morning he’s been vibrating with some sort of restless, irritable energy. At the checkpoint he’d been antagonistic to the point of near-stupidity, nearly lunging at a soldier who’d attempted to be too thorough when searching Cosette. It hadn’t helped that one of the black-uniformed officers had been there too, smirking as Enjolras had had to grab the back of Grantaire’s coat, to haul him back before he’d caused another incident.

They’d found Valjean without incident in the barn and after a quick debrief – he’d nearly been caught in a search of the countryside around Verdun by the occupiers – had headed off into the drizzle, down the other side of the hill towards a thicket of spindly trees.

Grantaire is now forging ahead, breaking branches with careless snaps and crunches and apparently finding every muddy puddle he possibly can to leave boot-prints in.

“Would you be quiet?” Enjolras calls to him from where he’s taking up the rear. The rain is misting in his hair, the damp makes the end of his arm ache something rotten. Today is one of those days where he’s sure he can feel his missing hand curled around his gun.

Grantaire just ignores him, keeps crashing. Enjolras grits his teeth, and Valjean turns to say, “We’re still miles off from the next village.”

“You never know who might be around.”

“I’m pretty sure we’re the only ones to come this way since autumn,” Valjean says, ever the voice of calm, sane reason. “But still I see your point. Would you like me to have a word with him?”

“No,” Enjolras grits his teeth. “I’ll cope.”

But then Grantaire starts singing something in Spanish that frightens the birds. He does quiet as they emerge out of the woods, cross several fields and wade through a shallow, freezing river but instead starts picking up stones and flinging them into the water. Enjolras clenches his fist and reminds himself to breathe.

The miles drag their feet and the drizzle doesn’t let up, but eventually they find a relatively sheltered place to make camp in a small wooded valley just outside a small farming hamlet called Florent-en-Argonne. Enjolras heaves his pack off and stretches his arm, which is still cramping though the phantom sensation has eased off somewhat. He remembers passing through here on the hellish march to Ardennes, the tanks roaring along the road at the head of the hill, the air thick with tension at the thought of heading to battle like his father years before. God, how young and naïve he’d been – newly promoted, ready to make the ultimate sacrifice for his country, to die in glory. There is, he’d learned within about five minutes of actual fighting, nothing glorious about war.

“I’ll go and get firewood,” Grantaire announces, shoving his hands into his pockets.

“It’s too wet for a fire.”

“Never tell me what’s impossible,” Grantaire says and then he’s wandering away into the trees, singing again. Enjolras has _no idea_ what’s come over him, where the funny, kind, interesting Grantaire of the last few days has slunk off to. If he’s going to be like this all the way to Normandy Enjolras will not be responsible for his actions. He knew this was a bad idea, knew he shouldn’t have let Éponine persuade him to accept someone so goddamn immature on such a dangerous errand, wishes with all of his heart that Combeferre and his rationality or Courfeyrac with his wit and sensitivity were here. Even one of his old soldiers would have been a better companion.

“Are you alright?” Valjean asks. The air warms infinitesimally. Now that Grantaire’s disappeared off to god knows where, the background hum he always seems to bring with him has dampened somewhat but there’s still something, a shimmer, a suggestion about Valjean and Cosette. God, he wishes he could just have answers!

“Fine,” Enjolras replies shortly, crouching down to get out some of the supplies Musichetta had found for them on the black market and saved from their rations. It’s really more than she should have given them, but she’d waved off his protests with a tight smile. “If you manage to get a fire going, there’s a good patch of nettles up by the road that we can stew to have with the bread.”

“Pass me the swedes and we can roast them for tomorrow too,” Cosette says, and he throws them to her, pulls out a towel. “Be careful.”

From somewhere he finds her a reassuring smile. “Of course.”

He starts the hike back up the muddy hillside, the soil squeaking under his feet. The land around here is quiet. It’s probably time for curfew, for people to settle in their houses and wait out the night, hoping tomorrow brings something other than more pain. It’s a futile wish, he knows this more than anyone, but everyone needs something to hold onto. One day, he thinks, the occupation will be over.

The singing reaches his ears before he sees Grantaire who is standing facing the road and pissing into the patch of nettles Enjolras was about to gather for their dinner. It is, quite frankly, the last straw.

“Jesus _Christ_ ,” he hears himself say. “Really?”

“What?” Grantaire asks aggressively, buttoning up his trousers and turning to face Enjolras. “Can’t a man piss in peace?”

“Not when he’s decided to piss all over the plants we were going to eat for our goddamned dinner,” Enjolras snaps. “Why did you do that?”

“Oh come on, how was I supposed to know? Am I expected to read your mind now?”

“No, just to have a modicum of common sense!”

“Nettles are disgusting anyway.” Grantaire’s shrug is maddeningly insouciant.

“Don’t be such a child! What else are we supposed to eat?”

“The supplies Musichetta gave us, perhaps?”

“Which are supposed to see us all the way to Reims! We’ve got to be careful with them, we can’t just-”

“I genuinely don’t see the point in getting so angry about all of this,” Grantaire says and that is when Enjolras sees red.

“The _point,_ ” he hisses, stepping closer and jamming a finger into Grantaire’s chest, “is that you have been _endangering_ us all day! Your recklessness nearly got us killed at the second checkpoint and you’ve been making noise and crashing about as if this isn’t an extremely dangerous and delicate operation we’re in the middle of!”

“Me? _My_ recklessness? Like you can talk!”

“Excuse me?” Enjolras demands. He can hear his heartbeat in his ears.

“You nearly got yourself killed in Verdun going after that boy!”

“That is a _gross_ over-exaggeration.”

“If we hadn’t been there -”

“You know what, let’s talk about Verdun. What the fuck happened?”

“What on earth are you -”

“The earthquake. The fact that we were _the_ most obvious suspects in the crowd and it was like the soldiers didn’t even realise we were there. There’s something going on and you need to tell me what the _hell_ it is or _so help me god_ -”

“You are fucking deluded. It was luck.” Grantaire is refusing to look at him, is shifting on his feet as though he’d rather be anywhere else.

“No it damn well wasn’t! We don’t _get_ earthquakes in France!”

“Well maybe now you do! Why are you so hung up on this?”

“Because a soldier looked _right_ through me like I was completely invisible and right before, it felt as though someone had _upended_ a bucket of water on my head but there was _nothing_ there.”

Grantaire snorts, but there’s something in his face that Enjolras can’t put a name to. “Maybe you imagined it.”

“Tell me what happened.”

“No.”

“So something did happen?”

“Por el amor de Dios, can you hear yourself? Nothing happened! We got lucky! If there’s anyone to be blamed for this it’s you fucking Resistance lot who go around and blow things up and get people in these messes to begin with -”

Grantaire is sneering. His accusation slams into Enjolras like a mortar round. How the _hell_ can he think that? What _right_ does he have to say anything of the sort?

“You expect us to just roll over and cow to the demands of our occupiers?” Enjolras seethes. “To stand by passively as they deport people to labour camps and gas chambers? You expect us not to fight back?”

“Don’t get so high and fucking mighty with me. This isn’t fighting back! You’re just like a fucking gnat in their side, a convenient excuse for them to hurt more people! Violence only begets more violence – it never ends! Don’t you _know_ that?”

“Now who’s getting high and mighty? Why are you even here if you’re such a pacifist? It’s not your war! This isn’t just an adventure, a _joke._ If the Nazis get their hands on Valjean and his work that’s it. It’s over.”

There’s something burning in Enjolras’ chest, the anger bitter and parched and hungry for destruction. He thinks of Musichetta’s frail shoulders, finding Combeferre with half his face ripped away, holding Courfeyrac close to keep the nightmares at bay. He thinks of all the people who have laid down their lives for this country, for their freedom, all the men he’s led to their deaths and all the people who have died because of his work with the Resistance.

“I don’t fucking know,” Grantaire says, too loud. His dark eyes are bright with tears. The ground is still trembling. “Even if I did, I don’t think it would be good enough for you, would it? _Nothing_ is good enough for you.”

He turns then, and strides away into the trees. Enjolras stands and watches him go, a lump in his throat and a taste like ash in his mouth.

**[day 9]**

“You,” Cosette says, falling into step beside him, “have been avoiding me.”

“I’ve been avoiding everyone. You’re not special.”

“Charming.”

They’re on a quiet road in the shadow of a railway embankment which is making Enjolras antsy but there’s no other way to cross the river Aisne but this. The drizzle is a soft silver sheet across the valley. The third train in an hour thunders past above their heads. The first two had been slow-moving, crammed full of thin, sooty faces and hands. This one is different – sleek, metallic, a red tentacled logo painted on the engine casing that’s gone too quickly for Grantaire to even try and work out what it was.

She’s quiet for another ten minutes or so, and then says: “I don’t know what you’re so scared of.”

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”

“You’re an elemental mage.”

Grantaire’s blood turns to ice - he clenches his fists as hard as he can. He has to stay in control, he _has_ to. “What do you mean?”

“Well your aura is all off for one, so I guessed you were a mage pretty quickly,” Cosette says bluntly. “And then you obviously knew _I’m_ a mage because you made me shield us all in Verdun. The earthquakes were just confirmation at that point.”

“I’m not going to be able to convince you that those were perfectly natural phenomena, am I?”

“I highly doubt it,” Cosette says.

They walk in silence for a few paces and then Grantaire sighs, explosive. There’s no point in lying to her. “Yes, I am. You’ve finally met the monster under the bed, congratulations.”

“You’re not a monster.”

“You don’t know what I’ve done. By all rights you should be running and screaming by now.”

“Grantaire,” Cosette says, pushing a stray strand of hair out of her face and looking up at him. Her face is shadowed, her energetic aura suddenly cold enough to raise goosebumps on his arms. “I’ve known monsters. Believe me. You’re not a monster. Monsters don’t care about anyone other than themselves.”

“What makes you think I care?”

Cosette rolls her eyes. The rebound of her aura is like the ping of a rubber band. “If you didn’t care, you wouldn’t have had such a horrible fight with Enjolras. I’m well versed in men who are stubborn assholes when it comes to their feelings for each other. I’d really rather the two of you _not_ take as long as Papa and Monsieur Javert, for your own sakes as much as anything else. We don’t have much time after all.”

With that she pats his arm and strides out to catch up with Valjean and Enjolras leaving him staring at her retreating back and wondering why the women in his life all seem to possess the remarkable ability to yank the world out from beneath his feet. She’s wrong, he thinks after a moment. Fine, he cares, he can admit that at least, but it hardly matters in the end. No amount of care can control a force of nature, lightning and tide and gale. He used to care and look where it got him – blood on his hands, drowning his ghosts in absinthe, retching into a gutter, screaming horrible things that Enjolras won’t forgive him for.

Care is for those who are strong enough to wield it, not for the likes of him.

**[day 10]**

They sneak into Reims just before the curfew through a sewerage outlet that Valjean knows about, sloshing through foul-smelling mud, heaving themselves out near the river, and slipping through the rainy coal-black night-time streets to a small house by the cathedral. The door is answered by a very old white man in a black cassock. His skin is papery with wrinkles, but his smile is broad. He hustles them inside.

“It’s been a long time, Jean,” he says. “Surely you are too old to go traipsing around in the sewers?”

“Needs must,” Valjean bows his head and lets the old man murmur something in Latin.

“Evil times,” the man agrees, turning to the rest of them. “My name is Myriel, it’s a pleasure. Come, we’ve drawn bathwater for you all and the dinner will be served directly after.”

The warm bath is painfully good, Enjolras thinks as he towels himself off and gathers up the dirty clothes that Myriel – a bishop as it turns out – has offered to have washed for them ready for tomorrow. Dinner is also warm and it’s mostly spent in contemplative silence listening to the rain drum a marching song on the roof. Grantaire is still refusing to meet his eyes after a whole day skulking at the rear of their group; after they’re done he excuses himself to go to bed. Enjolras offers to help the bishop’s elderly sister with the washing up but she shoos him away, so he heads out into the garden to kill time until he’s sure Grantaire has actually gone to sleep. If Grantaire doesn’t want to talk to him or make amends, Enjolras isn’t going to force him. He elects to ignore the sour taste that thought leaves lingering at the back of his mouth.

The rain has eased off and he stands looking up at the shadowy hulk of the gothic cathedral against the deep purple sky. He doesn’t think he’s angry anymore, not after a long day of time to reflect. Whatever it is Grantaire is hiding – and there is no doubt that he is hiding something – is obviously something painful, something secret, and causing him pain is the last thing Enjolras wants to do.

He closes his eyes and thinks about all the women his mother pushed in his direction before the war, the way he never understood the appeal they had to his friends, the way the thought of marriage made him want to run away and never return. He thinks about university in Paris, about the slow realisation that other kinds of love existed, about the curl of Grantaire’s teasing smirk on that first night. He’s no stranger to painful secrets.

When he goes back inside, Valjean and Myriel are sitting by the hearth talking quietly – they both look up as he comes in and Valjean tucks something gold and glinting back into the neck of his shirt.

“Would you like to join us?” Myriel asks. “There’s enough grog here for three.”

“Oh,” Enjolras glances to Valjean who just smiles, patient and tired and welcoming. “Yes, if I’m not intruding.”

“Of course not.” Myriel eases himself to his feet and retrieves the pot from the stove, pouring the steaming contents into three small clay mugs. Enjolras settles himself down on the pouffe, accepts one. It smells very sweet and very alcoholic, and for a moment he could be back at university, hunched into his and Combeferre’s tiny apartment with a head full of philosophy, law, and dreams of changing the world.

“How did you meet?” he asks after a moment. He’d planned to avoid all cities in the original route, but Valjean’s initial letter had mentioned an old friend in Reims and well. He’s grateful that they’re getting another break from the freezing cold, the damp ground.

Myriel and Valjean exchange a speaking glance.

“A long time ago in Digne,” Valjean says, “Monseigneur Myriel was the only person to offer me shelter and kindness when I needed it the most. I was a very different man back then.”

“The human being’s capacity for cruelty never ceases to disturb me,” Myriel murmurs. “We are all God’s children, no matter who we are or which book we regard as holy.”

“Indeed,” Valjean agrees. Enjolras just looks down at his drink. “Have you been able to help many people?”

“Not enough,” Myriel says. At Enjolras’ curious look, he clarifies, “my sister and I are part of a Christian network sheltering Jewish people. It’s getting more and more difficult as the war drags on.”

“Yes, we’ve found that too,” Enjolras says.

“Jean said that you are a member of the Resistance. I thought that was mostly sabotage.”

For all his mildness, Myriel’s gaze is searchlight-keen and Enjolras feels bare under it, as though Myriel is seeing and weighing up everything Enjolras would much rather keep hidden: the hopeless judgement calls, the bad decisions, the deaths.

“Our cell sabotages when necessary,” he says, “but we mostly co-ordinate escapes, safehouses. Not so different to what you do, I suspect.”

“Admirable,” Myriel nods. “It’s too easy to get lost in bloodshed.”

“I know,” Enjolras finds the corner of his mouth pulling up. “Who ever thought the world would come to this?”

**[day 11]**

Valjean doesn’t remember a time when he slept well. He’s sure he must have at one point, before prison, before the war, before his life became an endless exercise in looking over his shoulder and covering his tracks. By the time he and Javert reconciled, by the time he might have finally learned to breathe, the world was gearing up for war again and the responsibility for keeping the key to the blue casket was heavy on his shoulders. Perhaps he’ll get there one day before he dies. It’s a nice dream to have.

There had been a dogfight raging close by as they’d made camp – they’d seen fiery streaks hurtle from the sky several miles distant, Valjean had felt the energetic echoes of their explosions like minor burns against his skin. Now the night is quiet but for the chill shivering of the wind. He’s dozing on his bedroll with Cosette huddled for warmth at his side, staring up at the stars through the trees and wondering if Javert is doing the same thing hundreds of miles away across the sea when there’s a noise: the beginnings of a scream, someone scrabbling upright and breathing fast as though the air Is acid. He’s about to lift his head to see if the boys are alright but there’s rustling before he can get there, a voice soft in the darkness.

“Grantaire. Grantaire, it’s alright. It’s just a dream.”

“It was so real,” Grantaire is saying, his voice hoarse and slightly muffled as though his face is tucked against a shirt or a shoulder. His aura, usually so well-shielded, flickers against Valjean’s consciousness. He tries not to pay it too much mind – the reading of auras is something he’s always found a little too invasive for comfort.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“No.”

“Maman always used to say that a problem shared is a problem halved.”

“Abuela did too.”

“Try?”

“I can’t. I just,” a sigh, “really, really can’t. I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright.”

They go quiet; all Valjean hears is their breathing. Then,

“I’m sorry,” Grantaire says all in a rush, words tumbling together a little too loud. Cosette snuggles closer into Valjean’s chest. “I’m sorry for what I said to you, it was uncalled for and you had every right to get mad at me, and I just…”

“Sshh. It’s fine. I’m not entirely blameless either. You have my apology too.”

“Dios mío, we’re making up like actual adults. I wish Éponine were here to see this.”

“She’d have bashed our heads together well before now.”

“True.”

Another silence. Their energy exchange is hesitant, cautious, silvery like frost-laden early-morning cobwebs. Valjean thinks about Javert, thinks about the way he’d stood stiff in Valjean’s embrace that last morning before softening, deigning to wrap his arms around Valjean’s back and rest his chin on the top of Valjean’s head. The sea had been as bright as crushed green glass, and Valjean had never wanted to let go.

“Can we just stay here for a bit?” Grantaire asks tentatively.

Enjolras doesn’t answer, but the energy exchanges – brittle nervousness slowly morphing into the warmth of a quiet, unadmitted contentment – are answer enough. Valjean closes his eyes and murmurs under his breath, patching gaps in his mental shield and trying to give them their privacy.

**[day 12]**

The first sign that they are not alone is the crack of a twig and the sudden swell of an unfamiliar aura. Enjolras has his gun out before the Grantaire has even had a chance to look at the others, his arm perfectly steady and his back tense and straight. Even with the potential of an ambush, a small part of Grantaire’s brain can’t get over how deeply attractive Enjolras’ calm surety is.

“Who’s there?” Enjolras demands. “Show yourself.”

There’s a stomach-clenching moment of tension and then a young white dark-haired man with ruddy cheeks appears from behind a tree, his hands held up in the universal symbol of ‘I’m unarmed.’ There’s a leather flight helmet and goggles poking out of the side of his pack.

“Who are you?”

“I could ask you the same question,” the young man says in an accent Grantaire can’t place. He’s very thin and looks utterly exhausted; there’s a nasty cut black with dried blood across his forehead.

“I think you’ll find I’m the one holding the gun.”

“Fair enough,” the young man says. “They call me Feuilly in England. You won’t be able to pronounce my actual name. I got hit and had to bail out near here last night.”

“You’re a British pilot?” Grantaire asks. Enjolras sends him a sideways glare.

“Polish,” Feuilly inclines his head. “But with the RAF, yes.”

“We saw a dogfight last night,” Cosette says, also ignoring Enjolras. “It fits.”

“Yes, that would have been me.” Feuilly is swaying slightly on his feet. “Are you Resistance? My lieutenant said that there were several cells active around Soissons.”

“We’re just passing through,” Enjolras says firmly before Grantaire can open his mouth. “But we are certainly _not_ in league with the occupiers. You’re perfectly safe.”

“Perhaps put the gun down, sunshine,” Grantaire interrupts, stepping forward and putting a hand on Enjolras’ arm. He gets a level stare in return, but Enjolras’ lips are twitching. “The poor man looks like he’s about to pass out.”

“We can break here for a while,” Enjolras decides. “Have you eaten, Feuilly?”

“Not since we took off. If you have anything to spare…” he starts but Valjean already has his pack open, hands a piece of bread from Myriel’s place to Feuilly.

They all settle down amongst the trees for a breather whilst Feuilly demolishes the bread and two apples, and Valjean takes a look at his forehead. Grantaire shoves his feet against the side of Enjolras’ leg and tips his head up to the sky. Neither Valjean or Cosette have commented on their armistice and they are yet to speak about last night, but Grantaire thinks that the feel of Enjolras’ arm around him, his sheer _warmth,_ will be branded into his brain forever. This morning he’s gone back to needling Enjolras mercilessly and half-heartedly trying to restrain all of the wholly inappropriate avenues his mind wanders down when he lets it alone for too long. It’s a good distraction from the time ticking down, the coastline and his promises to himself getting ever closer. He can’t think about his imminent demise if he’s wondering what noises Enjolras would make if…

“What do you think?” Enjolras is saying, and Grantaire jerks his mind abruptly out of the gutter.

“Huh?”

Enjolras’ eyes are going to get stuck if he rolls them any harder. “I was wondering what your opinion of Feuilly’s idea was but since your head seems to be completely stuck in the clouds…”

“But the clouds are so _nice,_ ” Grantaire pouts, and then grins at Feuilly. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to drift off. Do you mind repeating yourself?”

“I was planning on train hopping back to the coast,” Feuilly says. “There’s a Resistance cell in Dieppe that gets helps pilots get home. If you’re going in the same direction we could stick together.”

“That sounds terribly dangerous,” Grantaire says.

“It would take days off our walk,” Cosette argues. “Give us a chance to rest. We’ve still got hundreds of kilometres to go, we might as well be sensible.”

“It’s a risk,” Valjean says, and Enjolras nods in agreement. “But if you’re sure you can do it undetected…”

“I used to travel all over Europe that way,” Feuilly responds, picking at his nailbeds. “And it’s how I got out of Poland when we got invaded. They don’t check freight cars as often as they should.”

“We should wait for dark,” Enjolras says.

In the end, it turns out far easier than expected especially with Cosette and Valjean holding a notice-me-not shield around them as they sneak down the embankment towards the railway line northwest out of Soissons. The wind is cold and Grantaire tries to concentrate on his feet, hating the idea with more and more passion as it gets closer. It’s utterly stupid. Walking is long and cold and boring but at least they’re not huddled into a metal cage like trapped rats.

“How do we do this?” Cosette whispers, looking both ways down the empty track.

“We wait until we get lucky,” Feuilly says, ushering them behind a low tangle of thorns. “This is a freight siding where slower trains will pause to let more important ones through.”

The moon is high in the sky and four trains rumble quickly past before there’s another pair of lights approaching, the squeal of angry brakes. Feuilly holds up a hand as a long, battered train clanks into their siding. Grantaire holds his breath, watches as Feuilly carefully pokes his head above the safety of their hiding-place. A couple of voices echo grumpily from the front of the train in German – complaining about being made to wait as far as Grantaire can translate.

“I’ll be back,” Feuilly whispers and then he’s gone, tip-toeing silently away down towards the dark back end of the train.

“Is he going to be?” Grantaire breathes for the sake of being cynical rather than from any real mistrust of Feuilly.

“Have faith,” Enjolras murmurs back, his breath warm against the shell of Grantaire’s ear. They barely have to wait before Feuilly is creeping back out of the darkness, gesturing for them to follow. They ease carefully down the bank and onto the tracks. Someone’s foot crunches and they all freeze – Enjolras glances over his shoulder, but Grantaire sees the shimmer of energy between them and the driver’s carriage, knows that they won’t get caught. There’s a low roar and a fast train rips past. Feuilly has found a half-open carriage, hauls himself easily in. The engine of their train starts to get louder.

“Just cases of ammunition in here,” he says. “Quickly.”

Valjean boosts Cosette up, and then climbs in himself, offering a hand for Enjolras and Grantaire. He’s extremely strong, Grantaire realises as he’s hauled unceremoniously up and into the carriage, especially for someone who must be pushing sixty-five. It’s odd how reticent Valjean is about using magecraft, though perhaps he’s more of a scholar than Cosette is, less willing to get his hands dirty.

They settle themselves against the back wall just as the train rattles into motion, lurching forward into the night.

“It’s nice to sit down,” Cosette says after a moment as the train settles into a steady motion. “To get somewhere without having to expend any energy. I will never take trains and automobiles for granted ever again.”

Valjean chuckles. “I know. Perfect timing for Shabbat as well.”

“One of us should stay awake,” Enjolras says, and Feuilly chimes in with tired agreement.

“I will,” Grantaire shrugs. “I’ll wake you if anything happens.”

“Are you sure?”

“No, I offered because I wanted to go to sleep and never wake up.”

Enjolras’ eyes glint in the gloom. “You’ve got your gun?”

“Yeah,” Grantaire says, pulling the thing out of its holster and laying it in his lap. He’s a decent shot but he barely needs to use it – god knows he’s dangerous enough without the help of gunpowder. “I’ll be fine. Go to sleep.”

“Alright,” Enjolras says, and then he’s quiet. After a while, the only thing Grantaire has for company is slow breathing, the racket of the train wheels on the rails. Enjolras’ body is one long, warm line inches from his side; after ten minutes or so, a sharp motion of the train slides him sideways so he’s pressed against Grantaire. He’s so exhausted that he doesn’t wake as his head tilts, coming to rest on Grantaire’s shoulder. Grantaire barely dares to breathe for the rest of the night.

**[day 13]**

They get to Rouen in the early hours of the morning, jumping from the train as it slows to enter the city. There are shouts from road arcing above them, the ping of bullets, but they scramble over the wall separating the train from the woodland on the opposite side of the track from the soldiers and sprint for several minutes. Cosette is the last to come jogging into the clearing, out of breath with the air shimmering around her.

“We’ve lost them,” she says, and she and Valjean share a significant look. Enjolras tells himself that he’s not paying attention to whatever this weird thing all three of his companions are apparently in on. If they say it’s safe it probably is.

“I do _love_ a bit of pre-dawn bullet dodging,” Grantaire does several feeble star jumps, his braid flopping over one shoulder. “Keeps me young.”

Even Feuilly is smiling at his antics. “I believe this is where we part ways.”

“It is,” Enjolras says, thankful for Feuilly’s good sense in not asking them to where, exactly, they are headed. “I hope you get back to England safely, and to Poland when the war is won.”

“Thank you,” Feuilly nods. “I hope you succeed in whatever-it-is you’re up to. Safe travels.”

With a nod and a last smile, he picks up his things and disappears back the way they’d come. Enjolras notices something is slipping out of the pocket on the side of Grantaire’s pack, a spherical tin of some kind; he steps closer and tucks it back in, noticing the way Grantaire’s breathing hitches.

“Come on,” Valjean says. “We’d better make the most of the darkness.”

It’s a slow and difficult day. They’re still about eighty kilometres from the sea, walking west and parallel to the coastline, but there are many more soldiers about. It’s especially hairy crossing the checkpoints clustered around the wide, winding Seine. Cosette and Grantaire pretend to be married again, hanging back a kilometre or so from Enjolras and Valjean who are impersonating a father and son contracted to labour on the rocket launch sites near Caen. They spend most of it walking in silence, weaving in and out of other groups of travellers and twitchy Nazi patrols.

Eventually, there’s enough quiet to slip off the road and up to a wooded hill. They daren’t make a fire this close to such a heavily occupied area, but find a small hollow in which to unroll their sleeping bags.

“We should set a watch,” Enjolras says after they’ve eaten. “This is an active war-zone, and they might be doing searches.”

“Two on, two off?” Valjean suggests. “Cosette and I will go first if you like. Grantaire looks dead on his feet.”

“I’m fine,” Grantaire yawns widely.

“No,” Valjean tells him firmly, “you’re not. You didn’t sleep on the train; you should sleep now.”

It’s a testament to how tired Grantaire is that he doesn’t even bother to say anything sarcastic, just curls up on his bedroll. His breathing evens out after just a few minutes, and Enjolras tears his eyes away to meet Valjean’s all-too-amused expression.

“You as well, son,” he says. “We’ll wake you at midnight.”

*

Night-time air-raids, Enjolras thinks, are astonishingly beautiful from a distance. The sky in the direction of Le Havre is on fire, reds and oranges and yellows flaring against the black like streaks of oil paint, intense and sure. The planes are barely visible until one catches fire, tumbling to earth like a falling star with a boom as the petrol tank goes up in flames. He squeezes the hand-gripper carefully, releases it again, times the motion with his breaths and the faint echoes of the raid.

“Budge up,” Grantaire’s voice says from behind him.

“I thought you were supposed to be on the other side of the hill,” Enjolras says, but he moves over anyway, lifts up the edge of his blanket. Grantaire sits down and shuffles under it until his hip is pressed against Enjolras’. Enjolras is glad that the darkness hides the heat that rushes to his face at the contact, chides himself for feeling like a stupid schoolboy. It means nothing. Grantaire is probably just cold.

“I’ll check it every so often,” Grantaire mumbles, his voice still thick with sleep. “It’s a quiet night and Cosette says you can hear everything from over here anyway.”

“That is not the point of being on watch.”

“Don’t be such a spoilsport.” Grantaire huffs. “Is that Le Havre I see getting a battering?”

“Indeed,” Enjolras replies. Then, “it’s easy to forget that there are people down there when you’re up so high.”

“It’s horrible, isn’t it,” Grantaire says after a moment.

“Battle?”

“Yeah. You know you’re supposed to be all brave and noble but all you want to do is run and hide.”

Enjolras hums in agreement, ignores the temptation to lean his head against Grantaire’s shoulder. “I know. It’s worse when you have to set a good example for your men. You can’t show any fear, not at all. They rely on you.”

“What rank did you hold?”

“Lieutenant. I think only five of my platoon survived Ardennes.”

“ _Christ,_ ” Grantaire hisses between his teeth.

“You know what the worst thing was?” Enjolras asks. Another explosion splits the horizon like an egg-shell. “It was that there were reinforcements not a day behind us. We could have held the Nazis off at Bouillon until they arrived. We _were_ holding them. My thirty men kept a division at bay for nine hours before we were ordered back. France might never have fallen.”

“Why did your commanders cave?”

“Fear, probably.” Enjolras says. “Most of them fought in the Great War too.”

“I’m glad we’re too young to have lived through that as well,” Grantaire says. His hair is loose, tickles Enjolras’ ear. If they looked at each other, Enjolras thinks, they’d be close enough to kiss. The possibility sends an electric thrill fizzing through his nerves. “Two wars has been quite enough for me.”

“You didn’t even have to be here,” Enjolras points out.

“I know,” Grantaire sighs. “I let Javert talk me into it.”

“Javert?”

“Éponine’s superior officer and Valjean’s old friend. Coldest man in the Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare.”

Enjolras can’t restrain a snort. “Is that what they’re calling themselves now?”

“It’s the British.”

“Their sense of humour never fails to baffle me.”

“Their whole damn country baffles me and I’ve lived there since 1939. The booze isn’t even good.”

“Do you think you’ll stay there, after the war?”

“Do you think we’ll be alive to see the end of it?”

“Touché.”

There hasn’t been an explosion in a while but the bitter and acrid tang of smoke drifts faintly on the wind.

“I’m going to go run a perimeter,” Grantaire says abruptly and gets up before Enjolras can do something stupid like ask him to stay.

**[day 14]**

The wooded hillside they decide to spend the next night at the bottom of is one long slick of mud, therefore it is practically inevitable that Grantaire ends up falling over. It’s been a second long, difficult day on the roads, checkpoint after checkpoint after checkpoint, and everything hurts, including his brain. Coming up with ridiculous witticisms to ease Cosette’s nerves in the face of unsmiling Nazi soldiers is exhausting, but he refuses to stop, to just allow her to be scared. The worst thing, however, is his feet – they scream in protest as he follows the others down the winding path; he’s trying to distract himself by half-daydreaming about Enjolras which means that he is painfully horizontal before he even realises it. Something in his bag crunches under his weight and there is an energetic rebound so burningly strong that he throws up his hands to shield his face at the force of it.

The others have turned at the noise.

“Are you…” Enjolras starts but Valjean interrupts him, voice uncharacteristically urgent.

“Grantaire. What was that?”

“I don’t know,” Grantaire wheezes, emerging from his hands. The energy is lingering like a toxic chemical. He shifts over, sees the thing that’s fallen out of the side of his pack – it used to be round, about the size of a baseball, and black metal covered in tiny little indents. It’s cracked open. When he goes to touch it, pain lances through his finger. “Ow!”

Valjean kneels down next to him, peers at it for a second and murmurs something under his breath in Arabic.

“What’s going on?” Enjolras demands from further down the slope. “Come on, we’re nearly there.”

“Just a second,” Grantaire hears Cosette say as Valjean looks up at him. His mouth is a set, straight line.

“I think,” he says quietly, “that this is a tracker.”

Grantaire stares at him, feels his heart thud several times. “A _what_?”

“I used to have to carry something similar. They’re…”

Valjean is interrupted by a clatter of gunfire somewhere very close. Cosette screams, and Grantaire scrambles to his feet. Valjean is already halfway down the hill towards them when the machine gun fires again. There is a streak of blue light. Cosette screams again. Figures in beetle-thick black armour are pounding towards him. He bolts, abandoning his pack and crashing downhill through thorny bushes that grasp and rip at his clothes.

The trees break out into a small glade and a fallen tree looms; he goes flying over it and hits the ground hard, the impact reverberating through his bones. The panic is a wild animal, biting and clawing. His meticulously constructed shields crumble and crack. Energy rushes into his body in a dizzying, painful landslide. The wind is suddenly roaring a war cry, the ground is practically undulating. No, no, no, no he can’t he _can’t_ let go, he has to stop it, he _won’t_ let this happen again, not after last time, not after Villarejo Seco…

He hauls himself to his feet, tries to haul himself back into control but it’s a sandcastle against a tsunami. He can’t think. He can’t _breathe._ A blue explosion rips past him and he reacts, surging forward and slamming a hand to an armour-clad shoulder. The soldier doesn’t even get a chance to scream, just crumbles backwards.

“Careful!” someone behind him shouts. “Schmidt wants this one alive.”

Grantaire whips around and the wind mirrors him. A second soldier is thrown up and backwards into a tree; he hits the ground with a terrible crack and doesn’t move. There are two other figures that he can see, in the same black armour with red logos on their shoulders but he can feel the swell of their shields around them. Mages. Grantaire’s breath is acid in his mouth. He’s got to get in control of himself, he’s got to…

One of them has a silver collar in his hands and the realization dawns like an oil spill. They want him _alive_. They mean to use him as a _weapon_. A crack opens up in the ground and there’s another distant scream, the sound of gunfire.

There’s a small, sharp scratch in the side of his neck and he puts a hand up, pulls out a blue-fletched dart. His mouth is dry.

“Easy,” the one with the collar says, his voice muffled by his helmet. “Easy. We’re not going to hurt you.”

“Fuck you,” Grantaire gasps. Whatever it is they’ve shot him with is fast-acting; the world is wobbling, receding, fraying at the edges. He can’t reach out for the energy anymore, can see the maelstrom of it around him but can’t touch it, can’t feel it, can’t do anything with it. They’re getting closer and he can’t move, Dios santo he can’t _move_.

There’s a hand on his shoulder, forcing his knees to bend and he starts to thrash as much as he can. His elbow drives painfully into a gap in the armour; his arm is grabbed and twisted painfully behind his back. The collar settles heavy and freezing around his neck and it locks tightly, begins to hum. There are black spots at the edge of his vision and a funny taste in his mouth.

Hands under his arms, hauling him up into a standing position. His vision is a fractured mosaic. He thinks they’re dragging him off somewhere but he can barely move, barely stand. Footsteps, faint. They pause. He’s still suspended between them, focusing on his breathing because if he…

He sees rather than feels an abrupt sharp flex of energy, bright and gold. One of his captors shouts, and then there is the crack of two loud gunshots. The hands holding him up are gone and he’s crashing to earth like a downed plane. Vaguely, he hears someone shouting his name but the world blacks out before he can work out who it is.

*

When he comes to, it’s to starched white sheets and an actual pillow. He stares up at the white, lumpy ceiling for a moment, trying to remember what happened. There was gunfire, a collar…his hands come up to his neck, but there’s no collar, no restraints. Where the hell _is_ he?

There is a creaking noise. He scrabbles upright, instinctively reaching out for energy flows but his muscles howl a protest and he can’t seem to find it, find the energy. His heart speeds up. Even when he was actively blocking it out the energy was still there, winding against his shields and trying to find a way in. It’s never been absent.

The door is opening and he looks around him for a weapon he can use instead but the room is small, windowless and holds nothing but a heavy chair, bedside stand, and a clay mug of water. His hand closes around it. It’s one shot, but he can do it, he can…a nun walks into the room with a tray of food, her long black habit swishing around her legs. Her eyes are very kind and her aura is small and quiet.

“Where am I?” he demands, knowing he should be politer but not being able to bring himself to it. “Who are you?”

“At the Abbey of Saint Jeanne, near Le Breuil-en-Auge,” she says, gently. “My name is Sister Simplice, and I’m the nurse here. You’re perfectly safe.”

“Where are my friends? How did I…”

“Eat your dinner,” she interrupts, putting the tray on his lap, “and I’ll tell you.”

He’s about to protest but the smell of hot soup wafts into his nose and his stomach grumbles loudly. Sellout, he thinks, picking up the spoon. She sits down, straight-backed, on the plain wooden chair beside the bed and watches him as he inhales half of the bowl.

“Your friends turned up on our doorstep bleeding and burned,” she says, eventually. “And you were completely unconscious with this horrible metal collar practically welded around your throat. Sister St-Michel had to crack it open with her pliers.”

“And you just took us in? In the middle of a war?” Grantaire asks before he can stop himself. His spoon shakes in his hand – god, what he wouldn’t give for a drink or ten right now. At her raised eyebrow he backtracks. “Not that I’m not grateful, it’s just…aren’t you going to get in trouble?”

“Mother Mechtilde saw the battle from the bell-tower,” Sister Simplice’s voice is very serene. “And our Abbess has always been somewhat rebellious. It’s not our way to turn aside from those who need help, especially our fellow resistors.”

“You’re…”

“Finish your food,” she says, standing. “Cosette and her father are abed, but I believe your other friend is wearing a hole in our cloisters should you wish to go and find him.”

“Thank you,” he replies, and she holds up her hand, murmurs a small prayer and is gone.

He quickly eats the rest of the food and swings himself out of bed, breathing through the sharp complaints of his muscles. Someone has given him clean clothes, but the shirt is thin. After a moment he takes the blanket and wraps it around his shoulders, then pulls open the door onto a stone corridor set with several other doors. At one end is a flight of stairs going down and at the other is a blacked-out window. He turns towards the stairs, the chill of the flagstones seeping through the thick socks someone has put onto his feet.

The cloisters are lit with steadily flickering sconces; shadows pool between them. Elaborate stone arches are cut into the far wall and the night air slithers in, laden with the smell of petrichor. The energy is there now, washing against the wreckage of his defences like stinging seawater. He breathes through the instinctive reaction to block, to dam up, to control. He breathes deeper and deeper, lets it in and finds it gentle, curious, filling up a hole he didn’t realise was there. When the feeling shows no signs of stopping he braces himself, waits for the inevitable explosion, but it doesn’t come; the inflow slows to a trickle and stops. His hands feel strangely full, his fingertips buzzing with potential, but the energy seems content to just sit there and hum to itself like an electric generator, ready to do whatever he wants it to do. He breathes in and out for several long seconds, closing his eyes against the sting of tears and lets the feeling run through his fingers like sand. How didn’t he realise it could be so easy?

He picks an arch at random and wanders through it into the grass garden. His socks are soaked within seconds, but he can feel the rain of atoms and photons through the air, hear the bioelectric buzzing of dreaming animals, the shift of energy from molecule to molecule as the grass squeezes upwards, an energetic aura sitting and seething on the wall at the far side of the abbey garden. Enjolras. What on _earth_ is he supposed to say? He supposes he could apologise for decimating a small, innocent woodland or make a joke about Zeus but the thought of doing either, of keeping up the pretence any longer, is utterly wearying.

The energy trails out behind him like a cloak as he walks. He has vague memories of doing something similar as a child before people started whispering, before Abuela put her wrinkled hands on his shoulders and told him that he had to stop it, to control it, to keep it close else people get scared. Two things he thinks he’s learned: people will always be scared of what they don’t understand and perhaps control doesn’t have to mean building a wall.

Enjolras looks up as he approaches. The cloudy moonlight illuminates a burn on the side of his face, the bandage poking out of the neck of his shirt. God he’s beautiful, Grantaire thinks dizzily.

“You’re awake,” Enjolras says softly after a moment, and then his lips purse. “And, oh…”

“What?”

“Look behind you.”

Grantaire does, and sees that daisies have opened in the grass following the pattern of his footprints. He groans and drops his head briefly into his hands. “I’d forgotten that I could do that. Can I join you before the grass claims me as its long-lost son?”

Enjolras shrugs fluidly. Grantaire chooses to take this as an agreement and climbs up next to him, pulling his knees to his chest. They sit in quiet for several careful minutes.

“It’s been quite a day, huh?” Grantaire says, wishing he could shift closer to Enjolras, to rest his head against Enjolras’ arm. He has a feeling, however, from the stiff set of Enjolras’ shoulders that this would not be welcomed right now.

“That’s the understatement of the century.”

“I’ve been adopted by the British. Understatement is the only currency they deal in.”

“Cosette and Valjean told me about mages,” Enjolras says. His voice is very level.

“Since you’re unbothered by the flowers spontaneously springing up in my wake, that does not come as a surprise.”

“You are underestimating my poker face,” Enjolras murmurs. Grantaire starts to fidget with the edge of the blanket. “Also I’ve done most of my shouting already.”

“Good to know.”

The silence swells for a while longer and then Enjolras sighs, twists to face him. “I understand logically why you didn’t say anything. I mean, I’d guessed you all were hiding something from me in Verdun. We really don’t get earthquakes in France and when we fought afterwards you all but confirmed that something had happened. So I’m glad to finally understand, but I’m just…where were you all when France was being invaded? Why don’t we all know about mages? We could have stopped the Nazis dead in their tracks!”

Enjolras’ gaze is diamond-hard; Grantaire looks back down at the blanket in his lap.

“Personally, I was probably being dragged out of a gutter in England by Éponine,” he says. “And as to the rest of it, I only know what Javert told me, which is that European mages _have_ been fighting, usually in their own wars. I assume Valjean told you about the key.”

Enjolras nods. “He did.”

“Yeah. It’s pretty unprecedented that human and mage affairs are converging like this – because of the Blight, we usually only concerned ourselves with world ending stuff.”

“Valjean tried to explain the edges to me. It’s…”

“Mind-bending, isn’t it?”

“Yes, exactly. I just…the world isn’t really what I thought it was.” A pause, long and drawn out. “They said that you’re an elemental mage. That’s why you can grow flowers.”

“And cause earthquakes when I’m upset.”

“That too. The others said that I needed to talk to you about it.”

“What’s there to say?” Nausea sloshes in his stomach, and he twists his fingers hard into the soft fabric of the blanket. “We’re very rare and very dangerous and usually shot before we learn how to walk.”

“You’re fucking _joking,_ ” Enjolras says, horrified. Grantaire makes an educated guess it’s about the being-shot thing – he supposes to someone who doesn’t know mage history it could seem a bit extreme.

“What you saw today isn’t even the start of what I can do. I’m orders of magnitude more powerful than any other kind of mage.”

Enjolras runs his hand through his hair, breathes out slowly. “So those Nazis – though they had on that strange uniform, I’ve never seen that insignia before Verdun – want Valjean’s key, and they want you…”

“Gold star,” Grantaire says, but it rings hollow. He feels completely and utterly drained. “They want me as a weapon. You don’t need to worry your pretty head about it because I’m not going to let it happen.”

“Are you going to fight for our side?”

“Didn’t you hear how dangerous I am? I’m not going to fight for any side. When I get back to England, it’s over.”

“What?”

“I’m turning myself in when we get back,” Grantaire murmurs, forcing himself to look Enjolras in the face. It’s the least he can do. “I’ve let this drag out too long as it is.”

“You…” Enjolras’ eyes are very wide and he’s sliding off the wall, standing in front of Grantaire. Grantaire swallows painfully. The energy well inside him rises with the thud of his heart and over Enjolras’ shoulder he sees the daisies wilt. Why did he let this slip? Of course Enjolras will object, Enjolras with his ideals and his righteousness and his hunger for justice. “You _can’t._ ”

“You don’t understand. As long as I’m alive I’m a risk,” Grantaire’s own voice is rising and he’s on his feet too. “And as long as there’s war – which means forever – someone will want to use me. I can’t be responsible for any more deaths.”

“I don’t understand, but surely there’s some other…”

“Enjolras. I can kill someone by touching them. I could level a city if I put my mind to it. I’m too dangerous to let live.”

Enjolras is close enough to touch and Grantaire wishes that they didn’t have to fight. He wishes and he wants and then he tells himself, again, that people like him don’t deserve someone as wonderful as René goddamn Enjolras, that it’s never going to happen. He should be content with daydreams of going up on his toes and pressing his mouth to Enjolras’, for the fantasy that Enjolras might want him back. God, he thinks dizzily, god he wants to live.

“It’s the only option,” he hears himself saying patiently. “And anyway, it’s my choice.”

“It shouldn’t have to be a choice,” Enjolras is shouting. “You should be able to…where are you going?!”

His hand is on Grantaire’s arm, his fingers burning. “Let me go,” Grantaire says distantly. “For God’s sake, just let me go.”


	3. week the third

**[day 15]**

In the morning, Cosette is so efficiently drafted into helping with the group of Jewish children being hidden at the abbey whilst the sisters sing mass that she doesn’t notice anything is wrong until they all sit down for lunch. Afterwards, when Grantaire excuses himself to go and rest and Enjolras starts dismantling and cleaning his armoury to the great delight of several children, she drags Papa to go and look at the historic cloisters.

“I think Enjolras and Grantaire are fighting again,” she says as soon as they’re far enough from the dining hall.

“What makes you think that?”

“Come on, Papa.” She squeezes his arm companionably. “They’re being _far_ too polite to each other. It’s unnerving.”

“They are, aren’t they?” Papa says. “Sorry. I’ve been a little distracted.”

“It’s alright. Anything you want to talk about?”

Papa hums. “Nothing that talking will solve, particularly. I’ve just been thinking about afterwards.”

“Afterwards?”

“We’ll be in England soon, God willing, and the key will be out of our hands. I just…” Papa sighs, “It’s a new chapter, a new country, a new life. I thought my days of moving on were over.”

“Life’s always about moving on,” Cosette says. She’s been coming to terms with this through the weeks of walking, of getting better and better at her shields, of learning to fire a gun and fighting side by side with Enjolras in a wooded clearing. Perhaps she’d been too hasty to want to put down roots; perhaps she’ll convince Marius that their life before the war is one worth leaving by the side of the road. “It doesn’t stand still. That’s the beauty of it. But I’m glad that you get a chance to settle down, to finally be with Monsieur Javert.”

“Indeed,” Papa says, but there’s a small smile curling around the corner of his mouth. “Do you think you’ll go back to Germany after the war?”

“I don’t know about _after_ the war.”

“What do you mean?”

“I think,” Cosette says, her fingers tightening on Papa’s arm, “that I might train as a nurse. Enjolras says that they’re planning an invasion, so I guess I’d go help with that.”

“I can’t say I’m surprised,” Papa squeezes her arm back, and she releases the breath she didn’t realise she was holding.

“You wouldn’t forbid me?”

“I couldn’t forbid you anything. Anyway, as you told me when you met Marius, you’re a grown woman. All I can do is pray that you’ll come home safe.”

“I’ll do my best,” Cosette says, “I’ve got to go and rescue Marius in any case.”

“You’re certainly not the girl who left Berlin, that’s for sure,” Papa hums.

“No,” Cosette repeats, her pulse a sure and steady thing. “Life moves on.”

*

Later that day, when Papa and Enjolras are planning the next stage of their route, she finds Grantaire lying in the grass of the courtyard garden with out-of-season flowers growing all around him.

“Mind if I join you?” she asks, waving the book she’d borrowed out of the sisters’ small library. He grunts in response. She decides to take this as an agreement, sitting down beside him and stretching out her legs. She reads in the peaceful quiet for a little bit until she becomes aware of the breeze changing slowly from hot to cold and back again, a tickling up her legs. She looks down to find that the flowers are growing into her lap, and looks up at Grantaire, who to all the world appears to be fast asleep. The marks from that awful collar are still red and raw against his neck. She will never _ever_ forget the terror in Enjolras’ voice as he’d caught sight of Grantaire between those two mage-soldiers in their strange uniforms, the way he’d been about to lunge forward and go at them before Valjean had grabbed the back of his jacket and hauled him back.

“Practising, I see?” she says lightly as a bumblebee zigzags over to investigate. One of Grantaire’s eyes crack open.

“In a manner of speaking.”

“I didn’t realise you could do this.”

“I used to as a kid to make Abuela laugh,” he says, shutting his eyes again. She stays very still to allow the bee to land on one of her flowers. It buzzes happily. “Cosette?”

“Yes?”

“I think I’ve worked out a way to control it.”

“Hey,” Cosette says, putting her book face-down on the grass, leaning back on her hands. The sunlight is like dirty dishwater, but it’s unbelievably welcome after all these days of rain. “I’m so glad.”

“I think,” Grantaire says, “that I just need to start from scratch, to not be scared of it. I still have to practise. But maybe I can leave behind something that’s more than fear.”

Apprehension skitters cold into Cosette’s thoughts. “What do you mean?”

“I’m turning myself in to the Circle when we get back to England.” Grantaire’s voice is deceptively calm. She can feel the way his aura – supernova bright without all those _walls_ – is shaking. She breathes deep. This, she thinks, is probably why he and Enjolras are at odds.

“Why?”

“That collar is designed to control me. It cuts off my access to all of this.” His hand sweeps out blindly, encompassing the earth, the sky. “They want to use me as a weapon.”

Cosette’s stomach clenches. “Good _God._ ”

“Yeah.” Grantaire’s voice is grim, but there’s an edge of pleading. “I have to do it, Cosette.”

She looks down at the ground, at the sky, at this man she’s spent two weeks travelling with, this man she really barely knows but cares so much about. The thought of him - his quick smiles and his sharp sense of humour, the deep, desperate melancholy he hides beneath sarcastic retorts and miles-wide battlements – wiped from the earth as though he’d never even existed hurts. It hurts so much. Who else is going to put so much effort into making her laugh at checkpoints? Who else could make Enjolras _shine_ the way he does whenever Grantaire is around?

“I don’t like it,” she says through the lump in her throat, “but I’ll respect your decision.”

Grantaire doesn’t say anything more but she feels the tickle of a vine growing up her left side, poking a curious tendril into her ear. She laughs because if she doesn’t she’ll cry.

**[day 16]**

Despite waking up to grey torrents of rain, Enjolras is glad to be leaving the abbey. The nuns have stocked them up again with fresh food, and some of the children whom he’d given an impromptu gun lesson to are gathered around their skirts.

“Safe travels!” the Abbess says, and they leave the courtyard to a ragged chorus of well-wishes. Enjolras finds himself smiling against his will, against the suppressed scream that has taken up permanent residence in his ribcage. Because of all this, because of the work of the nuns and the work of his friends and the hope that they might actually win this war, these children might have a chance of getting their childhood back. It’s something to cling onto.

The damp and depressed German soldiers let them through the bridge over the Touques without much hassle, and the path is winding out of the floodplain through a steep, wooded embankment when Grantaire is suddenly at his shoulder.

“I think…” he begins, but he doesn’t get much further because there is a rustle and a tall, blonde tank-like man appears out of the bushes. For Christ’s sake, why can’t they just get to the coast in peace? Enjolras doesn’t recognise the dark-blue and grey uniform with the faded white star in the middle of the man’s chest, steps in front of the others and goes for his gun despite Grantaire’s hiss of warning. No sooner is it aimed unflinchingly at the centre of the man’s forehead, clicking off the safety, then there is the click-clack of a machine gun being primed. Out of the corner of his eye, Enjolras sees another man appear from behind a tree, the glint of a rifle-barrel aimed directly at him.

“Well Steve,” the second man drawls, his French grating with a thick American accent, “looks like we’ve got ourselves into a Mexican standoff. How about that, huh?”

Grantaire is practically vibrating at Enjolras’ side, and Enjolras wishes for a moment he had his other hand, wishes he could physically hold Grantaire back. He’s sure Grantaire isn’t going to do anything – at least not intentionally – but this is an extremely delicate situation and he can’t risk anything going wrong. He settles for angling himself in a way that puts him in-between the two hostiles and his companions. Naturally, he forgets to account for Grantaire’s propensity to run his mouth.

“That is a travesty of an American invention thank you very much,” Grantaire says sharply, his accent far stronger than Enjolras has ever heard it before. “I object to the association of my country with that much stupidity.”

“Why’s there a Mexican in the middle of occupied Normandy?” the second man asks, picking his way closer. His aim doesn’t waver. Enjolras adjusts his stance. He can probably pull the trigger before the other guy shoots, especially if Cosette and Valjean manage to throw up a shield to protect them all.

“I could ask the same question about you, Yankee,” Grantaire snipes, “I thought you were all busy bashing the Bosch in Italy.”

“Grantaire,” Cosette hisses. The second man’s smile is a jagged thing.

“Who said anything about two of us?”

“Bucky,” the first man, Steve, warns. “Cool it. How about we all put our guns down and have a sensible discussion?”

“You first,” Enjolras bites out. There’s a drawn out pause and then Steve nods to Bucky who lowers his weapon, a mutinous look on his face. “The others too,” Enjolras adds.

Steve and Bucky look at each other and then Steve raises his voice a little. “Fellas, you can come out.”

There’s more rustling and five other camouflage-clad soldiers melt into view, all carrying heavy packs and guns.

“Is that all of them?” Enjolras asks Grantaire quietly.

“Yes,” Grantaire murmurs. “But there’s something odd about their auras. Be careful.”

Enjolras clicks the safety back onto his revolver and lowers it, but keeps it in his hand.

“Morita, Dum-Dum,” Steve says, making a hand gesture and ordering something in English. Two of his squad peel off, heading in opposite directions back into the woods. At Enjolras’ raised eyebrow, he says, “they’ll give us a warning if anyone tries to get the jump on us. I’m assuming you’re the leader.”

Enjolras watches Steve take in the others; his eyes linger on Valjean and Cosette, who are close behind Grantaire, both looking very damp and very miserable.

“Oh yes, he’s our great and glorious overlord,” Grantaire snaps. “The reason for our continued existence.”

Somewhere behind them Valjean heaves a sigh.

“Right,” Steve says. “I’d like a word with you, then. Away from your attack dog.”

“Oh no,” Grantaire says, and Enjolras feels his usual hum turning to static. Cosette has grabbed Grantaire’s shoulder, her face tense; Enjolras sees the shimmer of her shield flare up between them, wonders when he started being able to see it. “Cosette, let _go_ of me. Whatever you say to him you can say it to all of us.”

“Grantaire,” Enjolras tries to keep his voice as level as possible, doesn’t know how well he succeeds. God he’s sick of this, of all this fighting – he wishes they could just…he doesn’t know what he wishes. Anything but their current situation. “Leave it.”

Grantaire’s face twists. “Hurt him and you’re dead,” he tells Steve.

Enjolras reminds himself to stay calm, that now is not the time or place to think about Grantaire’s truly insane plan to go and get himself murdered out of some misplaced sense of duty to a government so scared of something it would rather destroy it than even attempt to understand it.

“Noted,” Steve says before Bucky can escalate the situation even more. He draws Enjolras a few paces off the path, to under the paltry shelter of one of the trees. Bucky follows and Enjolras restrains a comment about attack dogs. They look at each other for a moment and Steve runs his hand through his hair.

“So,” he says, “it’s pretty odd to see civilians off the main roads. Where are you headed?”

“Forgive me for not trusting you with that information,” Enjolras responds, aiming for the aloof coldness he’d always use on idiot classmates in Paris or when some of his younger soldiers pulled a stupid prank.

“We’re not Nazis,” Bucky breaks in.

“That still doesn’t mean I trust you. I have no idea _who_ you are.”

Steve gives him a long, hard look and then nods. “That’s fair, and an oversight on my part. Forgive me. My name is Captain Steven Rogers of the US Army. This is my sergeant, Bucky Barnes. We’ve been sent to make contact with local Resistance cells.”

“I can’t help you with that. We’re just passing through.”

“You wouldn’t have been in the area a couple of nights ago, then?” Bucky asks, folding his arms. “We found the site of a pretty big ambush, oh, a couple of kilometres east of here. Broken trees. The ground practically split open.”

“I don’t see how four civilians could escape what you are implying.”

Steve pulls something out of his pocket, something metallic and silvery that Enjolras recognises all too well. He restrains the urge to lunge for it, his last piece of Combeferre and home, hopes his surprise doesn’t paint itself across his face. He’d left it in the top of his pack, hadn’t even realised it wasn’t still there in all the confusion.

“It’s yours, isn’t it?” Steve asks. His gaze is very intent. Enjolras meets it squarely for a long moment and then decides that telling the partial truth is likely the easiest way out. He doesn’t have time to be arguing with American commandos for hours – they have _got_ to be on their way.

“Yes, it is,” he says, “I would appreciate having it back.”

Steve hands it over without a fuss and Enjolras pockets it. “What happened?”

“We were attacked by a squad of soldiers. They weren’t Wehrmacht. They had black armour and their guns shot blue bolts of light rather than bullets.”

Bucky’s eyebrows draw together in an impressive scowl. “Definitely HYDRA, then.”

“Excuse me?” Enjolras asks.

“It doesn’t matter,” Steve folds his arms.

“Yes,” Enjolras says, “it does.”

Steve and Bucky glance at each other, and then Steve nods. “HYDRA are the Nazis’ deep science division. I’m wondering, Monsieur…”

“Enjolras,” Enjolras says reluctantly.

“Monsieur Enjolras, why on earth they decided to attack you. As you said, there are only four of you and you’re not, as far as we know, part of any military force.”

“I’m part of the French Resistance,” he says eventually, lifting his chin, “just not from Normandy. My colleague and I are escorting Monsieur Valjean and his daughter to an evacuation point. Monsieur Valjean is a scientist that the Wehrmacht, and now apparently this HYDRA division, want to get their hands on.”

“Right,” Bucky says, raising an eyebrow. His voice oozes incredulity. “And you just expect us to believe that the four of you survived what looks like a combination of heavy weapons fire and a goddamn hurricane without any casualties or major injuries?”

“We were lucky,” Enjolras says. His heart is beating very fast, and unbidden, the image of Grantaire unconscious on the floor with that buzzing collar around his neck swims to the forefront of his mind. He pushes it down fiercely. Now is _not_ the time.

“Steve, he’s lying.”

On instinct, Enjolras locks his fingers tighter around his gun.

“Well,” a completely unwelcome voice says from the treeline, “I think you’ll find that you’re lying too. Or at the very least hiding something pretty important from us.”

Bucky whips around, and Enjolras restrains a groan. Of all the times…

“You got something to contribute, buddy?”

“As a matter of fact, I do,” Grantaire steps closer. The air is slightly distorted around him and the trees creak. “Even if Captain Gigantic over there hadn’t looked like he was mainlining steroids, I recognise you both from the news reels. You’re the guy they call Captain America, right?”

“Now hold on just a second,” Bucky demands. “What kind of…”

“Bucky, cut it out.” Steve puts his hand on Bucky’s shoulder as though he’s not above physically pulling him back. He glances between Enjolras and Grantaire carefully, and says, “yes, you’re right. That’s what the press call me, and for our purposes I’ve been scientifically enhanced. Would you like to tell us the truth now too?”

Enjolras cuts a glance at Grantaire who shakes his head infinitesimally. His eyes are shadowed. The echoes of their fight ring in Enjolras’ ears, but there’s no other way to do this, no other way to get out.

“Some amongst our company are also enhanced,” Enjolras says, but before Grantaire can interrupt, “but I can’t tell you any more than that. I hope you understand. We just need to get out of here as soon as possible.”

Bucky and Steve exchange another speaking look, and then Bucky asks: “which direction?”

“Towards Saint-Lô.”

“Well,” Steve says calmly, beginning to walk back to the path. “We’ve got a rendezvous to make at Caen. We might as well travel with you. Let’s move out in fifteen minutes.”

Grantaire barely waits for them to be out of earshot before rounding on Enjolras. “What the hell did you do that for?”

Enjolras holsters his gun, presses his fingers to his temples. “Since you decided to tell them I was in charge, I acted as I saw fit,” he says, as coldly as he possibly can. “If you’ll excuse me.”

“No, I will not -” Grantaire starts, putting a hand on Enjolras’ shoulder.

Enjolras shrugs it off and keeps walking, ignores the sickening way his heart lurches. It’s for the best. It has to be.

**[day 17]**

Travelling with the Americans – the Howling Commandos as they call themselves – is an interesting experience. For the first day and most of the second morning Cosette sticks close to Papa, knowing logically that she isn’t in any more danger than usual but still wary of the fact that she is the only woman amongst a whole group of unknown men. As the day pads on, however, she begins to focus more on her aching feet and back, on the feel of rain sliding down her cheeks and sticking her wet hair to the back of her anorak. She wishes she could shield against the weather, but there’s nowhere near enough energy around to channel into as big a warding as that. She thinks she’ll be hearing the squelch of mud in her dreams for the rest of her life.

Enjolras has been at the head of the column with Steve since the beginning of their march, discussing something that makes both their auras flare red-gold in righteous indignation. After re-emerging from the trees, Grantaire had quickly gravitated to the rear, as if to get as far away from Enjolras as possible. The morning of the second day he’d been joined by the handsome dark-haired sergeant; every so often she hears the bite of a cutting retort, laughter. The others have fanned out around them, keeping watch over the empty, drenched countryside. Eventually, Papa is drawn into conversation with the two Europeans, which Cosette half-listens to until she realises that someone has fallen quietly into step next to her. She glances over to see the American with dark-brown skin and a machine gun over his back; he flashes her a smile, offers his hand.

“Gabe Jones.”

She smiles back, shakes it. “Cosette Fauchlevent. A pleasure.” Then, because years of life sailing in and out of Berlin salons under the watchful eyes of Jewish society ladies has given her an inbuilt reflex for pleasant small talk, “How are you finding France?”

Gabe’s eyes crinkle up around the corners. “Somewhat less welcoming than I’d always imagined. And wet. Very wet.”

Cosette laughs. “The perils of Normandy, I’m afraid.”

“Are you from this area?”

“No, I’m from Marseille originally, right down on the Mediterranean, but I’ve lived near Calais, in Paris, in Berlin, and then in Alsace-Lorraine. And now the Normandy countryside.” Then, at his raised eyebrow, “my mother’s from Haiti.”

“You’ve moved around a lot.”

“I suppose we have,” Cosette shrugs, tries to play it off. It’s not as if most people’s adopted fathers have to periodically go on the run from the law. “What about you?”

“Born and raised in Georgia,” Gabe says, “Didn’t leave until the war started. Always wanted to though.”

“Where did you want to go?”

“France,” he says, “Germany. I studied both languages at college.”

“I was about to say that your French is excellent,” Cosette replies, and then switches into German. “You’ll have to come back after the war, if it’s not too ridiculous to speak of after.”

He replies in the same language, getting a look of consternation from Dum-Dum, who is marching ahead of them. “It’s not. Folks say it might be over within the year. You’ve got to have something to keep you fighting until we finally get there.”

Cosette thinks of Marius, thinks of the smile that had dawned on his face as he’d realised that she loved him back. “Yes,” she says. “Yes, you do.”

By dusk they reach the village of Mouen, several kilometres from Caen, without incident unless Cosette counts Dernier and Gabe having a ridiculous stick sword-fight when they break for lunch. As they approach, the mood turns to brisk professionalism as Captain Rogers orders them silently to dig in on either side of the road. There is a checkpoint a few hundred yards ahead; Morita and Falsworth are sent to go and scout in the direction of Caen, whilst Bucky climbs into a tree to set up his sniper rifle.

Enjolras comes over to inform them briskly that he’s going to help with the ambush.

“Could we do anything?” Cosette asks. “I know we’re not soldiers or anything, but shields and notice-me-nots could be useful?”

“They don’t know about mages,” Valjean points out.

Grantaire, sitting in the tree above them, snorts. Cosette glances up at him; he is glaring down at Enjolras. “Well someone happened to tell them that…”

“I didn’t say anything about mages and you know it, Grantaire, stop being ridiculous,” Enjolras hisses back. His cheeks are flushed. He turns to Valjean and Cosette. “I just implied that some of us are enhanced like Captain Rogers is. It was the only way to get them to trust us.”

“That explains his aura,” Valjean murmurs, and then sighs. “Fine.”

“Is that all you have to say?” Grantaire huffs. “Fine?”

Cosette bristles at his tone of voice. “It _is_ fine. He didn’t actually say anything that would endanger us and they all seem like perfectly decent men. _I_ am going to go and offer my services. You can come too if you change your mind. Enjolras, would you like to accompany me?”

Enjolras blinks. “Of course.”

He leads her over to where Captain Rogers is just crawling back from the road, binoculars in hand. He rolls to his feet very gracefully for such a big man. “What’s the matter?”

“Cosette wants to talk to you,” Enjolras says. “I’m going to go join Dernier in the fox-hole.”

He goes and Captain Rogers turns the full focus of his gaze onto her; Cosette wonders whether this is what a specimen under a magnifying glass must feel like. “Shields,” she says.

“What about them?”

“That’s my enhancement. I can make them. And glamours. I was wondering whether it might be useful.”

Captain Rogers tilts his head to one side. “Show me?”

Cosette closes her eyes for a second, reaching into the energy exchanges peeling off all around her – the excess kinesis of people moving, the force field of human existence, and her own small reserve of energy, flexing it upwards into a dome around her. Usually this kind of hearth magecraft relies on the foundation of decaying energy found in a home or building rather than out in the open, but Papa’s had years to perfect it on the go. She murmurs the correct phrase in Arabic and then opens her eyes.

“Stay there,” she says, moving in a circle around him, “and now try and look at me from the corner of your eye.”

“Huh. You’re not there,” he replies. She lets the glamour drop. “Neat trick. I’m assuming I’m not allowed to ask how it works?”

“Not really,” Cosette says.

“Swell. So if I were to put Dum-Dum and his heavy machine gun on the embankment in clear view of the road, you’d be able to stop him getting seen.”

“Yes.”

“That makes life a lot easier.” Captain Rogers’ radio suddenly crackles into life, and he’s pulling it off his belt, holding it to his ear. Cosette catches someone’s voice saying ‘a lot of company…Carter coming in fast.’ “Follow me. Three minutes, fellas.”

As promised, he leaves Cosette with Dum-Dum, a burly, bearded white American who quickly drags his machine gun into position on the side of the road. Cosette takes a deep breath and reaches for the energy again, weaving the glamour tight and strong. She senses rather than sees Papa in the woods acting as a conduit for her, channelling the energy. Grantaire is still up in his tree, but after a moment his energetic signature joins Papa’s. A motorbike engine roars in the distance. She hears panicked shouting coming from the checkpoint. If anything, the motorbike engine gets faster and louder. Gunfire begins to pop from the German side. Cosette’s heart is beating wildly but she keeps a firm mental grip on the energy as Dum-Dum tenses beside her.

“Now,” he’s muttering to himself. “Steve, c’mon…”

Several things happen at once: the motorbike smashes through the checkpoint and swerves around, almost horizontal. A figure rolls off it, a pistol popping. Captain Rogers shouts, and all hell breaks loose. Cosette sees the flash of Enjolras’ hair as he dives back under a tree for cover after shooting someone right on the figure’s tail.

It is over very, very quickly.

Captain Rogers jumps down into the road, followed quickly by Sergeant Barnes. As the motorbike rider turns towards them, Cosette realises that she’s a woman; her hair is tangled, red lipstick is smeared across her face, and her floral dress and cardigan are covered in dust.

Cosette feels a hand on her shoulder, turns to look at Dum-Dum.

“You can drop it now, lass,” he says. “Thanks for the cover.”

“Call that a sneaky getaway, Carter?” Sergeant Barnes is saying as Cosette follows Dum-Dum over to where some of the others are gathering.

“I said nothing of the sort.” Carter stretches her arms out in front of her and winces. “And it’s not my fault anyway. I’ve got some things you need to see.” She pauses, turns, and clocks Cosette who realises after a moment that Enjolras has padded up behind her. “Who the hell are the strays?”

*

They march for another few kilometres before making camp at the base of a steep, rocky valley. Grantaire wanders off in the direction of the hill, watched by Enjolras for a moment as though he’s about to follow before Dernier grabs his arm and drags him back into the group. Cosette hovers like a spare part as they quickly set up camp and begin to discuss the papers Carter has managed to filch from somewhere in Caen.

“I’m just going for a wander,” she says to Papa after a minutes of this, picking up the ration pack Gabe had brought over for her and tying her scarf tighter around her neck. He gives her a worried look, and she kisses his cheek.

“Don’t go far.”

She doesn’t. She walks several hundred yards down the edge of the silvery river, listening to the wind hiss through the rushes, until she finds a tumble of boulders probably brought there by glaciers. Marius had known so much about landscape geomorphology, had loved to try and work out which processes had made the mountains the exact shape they were, had included them in the poems he used to write. She doesn’t know why she’s thinking about him as though he were dead.

The footsteps are muffled by the mud and Cosette is so lost in memory that it takes her a moment to notice that someone is climbing up beside her. The clear night reveals slim shoulders bundled into a thick jumper and long hair pulled back in a sensible braid.

“Mind if I join you?” Carter asks.

“If you want,” Cosette says, looking back down at her knees. “Aren’t they still talking strategy?”

“No. We need to wire the intel back to base, see what the analysts say.”

They fall into quiet. The river laps gently at the bank, metres below, and somewhere Cosette can hear the honk of geese, the low drone of a bomber stream flying miles to the east.

“That was a neat trick with the motorbike,” Cosette says eventually. “However did you learn to do that?”

“Trial and error.” Carter shrugs, gazing out across the valley. “And adrenaline. That tends to help too.” She slants Cosette a glance, her mouth curving up. “That was pretty tame by Howling Commando standards.”

“Really?”

“I have done some truly insane things with this lot.” Carter’s voice is amused, warm. “It’s a bit of a shame they all have to stay classified.”

“How long have you been with them?”

“Right from the start. The unit was formed in May ’43, in Italy.” She sighs. “Fuck. I can’t believe it’s not even been a year yet.”

“It’s so odd, isn’t it?” Cosette hums.

“What is?”

“Time. Our journey’s been about two and a half weeks, and it simultaneously feels like the shortest and the longest time of my life. I don’t get it.”

“No-one tells you how slow and boring war is. Have you been involved before now?”

Cosette hugs her knee to her chest, chews on her lip. Carter is so put together, so very competent, it feels almost embarrassing to try and stand in comparison. “No. We were…well, in hiding. Papa and I are Jewish. I did some work with my fiancé helping smuggle people out, but that’s it, mostly. I want to get involved more, though, when we’re finished here.”

“You could join the SSR if you wanted to,” Carter says. “Plenty of positions for a bright young woman – codebreaking, logistics. You’re less likely to get killed there than you are in the SOE.”

“What a sell.” There’s warmth kindling in Cosette’s chest, a sense that she’s being _seen_. “I told Papa I wanted to be a nurse.”

“Hmm,” Carter says. Then, “Steve says you’re enhanced.”

Cosette turns to look at her sharply. Perhaps Grantaire _was_ right to be so cautious about letting it out, especially letting it out to soldiers. At least with marriages the vows include that of secrecy; there’s nothing here to stop anyone flapping their mouth and she’ll be in so much trouble if it…Carter reaches out to touch the back of her hand.

“It’s not going to go any further than us,” she says with quiet authority. “I promise.”

Cosette exhales. “Thanks. I just…yeah. I am. In a manner of speaking. We’re not supposed to tell anyone that’s not family.”

“Right.” Carter tilts her head. Her eyes glint in the darkness. “It was pretty neat. I couldn’t see Dugan at all until you dropped whatever-it-was you were doing and he was barely fifteen yards away. Are the whole lot of you enhanced?”

“Enjolras isn’t. But he’s been fighting since 1940 so he doesn’t need to be.” Cosette sighs, looks down again. “I’m going to miss him.”

“He’s going to stay in France?”

“Yes. He’s got a group down in the Alsace region.”

“Damn, I was hoping to convince him to defect to the SSR.” Carter runs a hand through her hair. “He’s a magnificent shot. Though on second thoughts it would be havoc.”

“What do you mean?”

Cosette sees Carter grin, suddenly. “No woman in the place would get _any_ work done with him around. It’s bad enough with Steve and Barnes.”

“Oh God,” Cosette says, a laugh rising in her throat. “If they tried to flirt with him I think they’d end up getting a lesson on why we need universal human rights rather than anything romantic.”

“I might pay to see that.”

“Me too. And to see Grantaire’s teasing after.” Cosette tucks that treasured mental image away somewhere safe. “Sadly I don’t think you’ll ever convince him to leave France. He loves it too much.”

“Shame. We’re always in need of people like him. People like you, too.”

“I am flattered,” Cosette says. “Really flattered. But I’m not a fighter, not in the way you are. The thought of doing anything other than shielding makes me want to curl up in a ball and hide.”

“There are many ways to fight a war, Cosette Fauchlevent,” Carter says. “It’s not all shoot-outs and great escapes. I’ll give you my contact details in the morning before you go. Think about it?”

Cosette sighs. “Yes. I can do that.”

“Until then,” Carter says, unfolding herself and getting up, “you know where to find me.”

“Where things are exploding?”

Carter smiles, sharp and dangerous. “You got it. I’ll see you back at camp.”

**[day 18]**

They say goodbye to the Americans several kilometres west of Bayeux in yet another woodland. Grantaire shifts from foot to foot, waiting for everyone to stop milling around and chatting to each other as though this is a fucking leisure hike rather than the divergence of two very important missions. Cosette is talking intently to Peggy Carter and Valjean is making pleasantries with most of the rest of the Commandos.

“That sad to see us go, huh?” Barnes says right next to his ear. If Grantaire hadn’t been a mage, he might have jumped with surprise. As it is, he just turns his head slowly and gives Barnes a long, silent stare.

“Wow,” Barnes drawls. “I’m gutted, man. I thought we had something beautiful.”

“You’re so full of shit,” Grantaire snorts, his mouth drawing up in an unwilling smile.

“Guilty as charged,” Barnes shrugs. “What can you do?”

Grantaire turns away, looks over to where Enjolras and Steve are saying goodbye very seriously. The cloud-dappled sunlight reflects off both of their golden hair, their straight backs, the vertices of their smiles.

“He whom I valued more than all others, and loved as dearly as my own life,” Barnes murmurs in English, apropos of nothing. Grantaire looks back at him, raises his eyebrows.

“The Iliad? Really?”

Barnes shrugs. “It’s the only thing I remember from high school. Fitting, huh?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Don’t be a dumbass,” Barnes says, suddenly and unexpectedly fierce, reaching out to clasp Grantaire’s shoulder. “Don’t leave him on an argument. You’ll never forgive yourself if you do.”

Grantaire doesn’t know what he’s supposed to say to a gut punch like that, to the bone-deep knowledge that Barnes is completely right. Luckily he doesn’t have to.

“Bucky!” Steve is calling. “Are you coming or running off with this lot?”

“Punk,” Barnes mutters, but he’s slapping Grantaire’s shoulder and moving on. “Safe travels, pal. See you on the other side, wherever that may be.”

**[day 19]**

The smuggler is a small, suave man with in galoshes and an impeccably tied cravat. When she’d heard the brief, Éponine had nearly fallen over she’d been laughing so hard – eventually she’d composed herself enough to inform Enjolras that Montparnasse used to be an art thief and occasional murderer, the son of an old family friend.

“I don’t know what Javert’s thinking,” she’d wheezed. “Maybe ‘Parnasse has decided smuggling is more lucrative. Give him my regards, won’t you?”

“You’ve got the money?” is the first thing he asks when he meets them in a small copse close to the cliff-line. The wind is salt-heavy and relatively strong, blowing the grass this way and that. Montparnasse’s eyes are very cold. It feels very wrong to be entrusting their lives to the sort of criminal Enjolras, in another life, would be helping put behind bars.

“Here,” Enjolras says, handing over the envelope Grantaire had brought from London. “They’ve got the other half in the patrol boat when you get out that far. Have you distracted the guards?”

Montparnasse opens the envelope and riffles through the notes inside before tucking it into the pocket of his silk-lined jacket. “Relax, sir. I’m a professional. They don’t man the bunkers unless they’re expecting an attack.”

He checks his _pocket watch_ of all things, and then looks at the sky. “The tide should just have turned. Come on.”

The four of them follow him warily to the edge of the trees, across one field and over a wall.

“A minefield,” Grantaire says quietly. He’s been very quiet for these last two days walking, perfectly in step with Enjolras but not saying much. Enjolras, for his part, has been using the time to think, to rationalise, to calm down. There’s no point wasting these last two days on anger, he imagines Combeferre saying to him. There will be plenty of time for anger after all is said and done. You know what you need to do.

“Indeed.” Montparnasse turns to face them. “Follow me very carefully.”

“It’s alright,” he hears Grantaire murmuring to Cosette and Valjean behind him. “I can tell where they all are as well. Nasty buggers.”

Enjolras feels his pulse pick up as they begin to thread their way across the field back and forth in seemingly-random loops, the long grass whispering against their knees. Grantaire is very close behind him, and he feels the hum intensify as they get closer to the cliff-edge. There’s no discernible way down to the grey-blue expanse of the sea; they shouldn’t have trusted him, Enjolras thinks suddenly, violently, this was an idiotic mistake, they’re about to fall at the last hurdle, they’re so close…

Montparnasse suddenly shrinks by half a foot, and Enjolras finally sees through the grass to a steep, rough-hewn set of stairs carved sideways into the cliff.

“Watch your footing,” Montparnasse says. “What, you didn’t think I was going to lead you over a cliff?”

He snickers at his bad joke, and then goes ahead, moving with a confidence that belies long familiarity.

“We used to have some of these near my village,” Grantaire says as Enjolras follows more cautiously. “Smugglers’ stairs. Are you alright?”

“Balance,” Enjolras says, shortly. “They’re quite slippery. It’s harder with only one arm.”

“I’ll catch you if you fall,” Grantaire says. “I’m nice like that.”

Enjolras huffs, but feels the press of warm fingers on his shoulder, the squeeze of his heart in response.

“Go on,” Grantaire tells him. “Right here.”

They make it down to the beach in short order – Montparnasse tells them to wait whilst he wades out to a cave to fetch his boat. Once he’s crunched off out of earshot across the pebbles and into the water, they all stand in the shadow of the cliff and look at each other.

“Well,” Enjolras says. “I guess this is it.”

Before he can get much further, Cosette has stepped forwards and wrapped her arms tightly around his midsection, pressing her face into his shoulder. After a second he hugs her back.

“Stay safe,” she orders, her voice muffled in his shirt. “I’m expecting to see you at my wedding to Marius. Are we quite clear?”

“Of course,” Enjolras tells her. “I’ll do my best.”

She steps back, swipes at her eyes. Valjean is smiling sadly, offers Enjolras a firm handshake. “I can’t thank you enough for helping us. If you ever need _anything_ …”

“It’s been my honour,” Enjolras tells him. “I hope the rest of your journey is uneventful, and everything in England goes to plan. Give my regards to Javert.”

There is the splash of oars in water and they all turn to see a small motor-boat drifting out from the base of the tall cliffs. Montparnasse is beckoning them from the seat by the steering wheel.

“I do too,” Valjean says. “Come on Cosette, Grantaire. We’d better not keep the boat waiting.”

“I’ll be there in just a moment,” Grantaire says, and something wordless passes between him and Cosette.

“Be quick,” she says, taking Valjean’s hand. They turn and walk down towards the waterline, the pebbles small landslides as they pass. Grantaire turns to face Enjolras, looks up at him. Several pieces of cloudy hair are escaping out of his braid, and in the fraying light it feels as though someone has reached right through Enjolras’ ribs and wrapped a fist around his heart. Grantaire is going to England, Grantaire is going to his death. He hears Combeferre quoting poetry in his head: _better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all._

“I don’t know what to say,” Grantaire says, serious and quiet like Enjolras has never seen him before. “Vera Lynn doesn’t quite cut it.”

“No,” Enjolras says, tracing every line of his face, his uneven nose, the scar on his temple, the crinkles around his eyes. “I don’t either. I wish…”

“You wish what?”

“Time,” Enjolras says simply. His vision is blurring and he reaches up to wipe the tears away, but Grantaire gets there first. His fingers are rough, the light touch of them electric. “I wish we had more time.”

“Me too.” Grantaire swallows. “I’m sorry it had to end this way.”

“It’s alright. I forgive you.” Enjolras’ inhale is shaky. He knows, somewhere deep inside, that this is the right thing to do, that this is the one thing he can’t fight. “I understand.”

“Thank you,” Grantaire tells him, soft. “That means the world to me.”

His hand is still on Enjolras’ cheek. Enjolras thinks that he might just bend down and…the pop of a gunshot, shouts from the cliff. His heart lurches so hard he thinks he might be sick. He’s spinning round, scrabbling for his gun, shoving Grantaire as hard as he can in the direction of the sea.

“I’ll hold them off,” he says, urgent.

He shoots, catching one in the neck, another in the shoulder – they fall with yells. The shimmer of a shield erupts into life in front of him. From the water, he can hear Valjean and Cosette calling Grantaire’s name,

“Go!” he shouts over his shoulder. “Just go! I’ll be fine!”

“No, Enjolras, I…”

There is the sudden crump of mortars. Enjolras goes cold. He can see the shells, the arcs of them against the cloud-heavy sky but keeps shooting at the soldiers, expecting the shield to repel them but they crash straight through. He spins. One has landed metres from Grantaire’s feet, is leaking pale blue gas. Grantaire’s eyes go wide, his body stiff. He falls to his knees.

“Grantaire! Enjolras!” Cosette is screaming, shrill and high-pitched. “Get in the boat! Get in the fucking boat!”

“GO!” Enjolras bellows. “For God’s sake, GO!”

He’s on his knees beside Grantaire, desperately feeling for a pulse that beats, static and uneven, against his fingers. He doesn’t know how he got there. The pebbles are sharp against his knees. He thinks he might be screaming Grantaire’s name, over and over. The crump of more shells impacting with the beach; a white choking cloud that makes his eyes run with stinging tears. He can’t breathe, fuck, he can’t breathe, he’s back in Ardennes and all is chaos as the attack thunders around him. Grantaire is dying at his feet. Grantaire is _dying._

“Grantaire,” he sobs, “please. _Please._ Come on, we’ve got to go, we’ve…”

There is a sharp pain in the back of his head and he knows nothing more.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm sorry. sort of. there's going to be a sequel, it is being written, but it's being very stressful right now so i can't say when it'll be up.  
> please come and scream at me on tumblr. i would love to hear from you: @if-fortunate  
> also follow Andrea on tumblr for more epic art - she hangs out at @im-a-fucking-pretty-princess. 
> 
> inspirations: feuilly as a polish raf pilot from 'till blue skies drive the dark clouds away' by AMarguerite; e/r & s/b from folie a quatre by Ark; 
> 
> For research purposes I can't recommend enough: Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky & Les Parisiennes by Anne Sebba; The Secret War by Max Hastings. the epigraph comes from the beautiful book 'Walking On The Ceiling' by Ayşegül Savas.
> 
> (also if you want to know more about the mage system, my series "the heart is a muscle" uses the same one but set in the present day).


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